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THE  TEACHINGS  OE 
DANTE 


BY 


CHARLES  ALLEN  DINSMORE 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 


BEPLACINQ 


COPYRIGHT,    IQOI,   BY  CHARLES  A.   DINSMORB 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


Published  September,  igoi 


MA  /A 


TO  MY  WIFE 

WHOSE  DEVOTION  HAS  MADE  POSSIBLE  THESE  STUDIES 
I  DEDICATE  THIS  BOOK 


PEEFACE 

One  hot  summer's  morning  several  years  ago, 
wishing  to  make  more  enjoyable  a  day  of  leisure, 
I  searched  through  a  friend's  library  for  an  in- 
teresting book  to  take  into  the  woods.  Most  of 
the  volumes,  being  upon  theology  and  philoso- 
phy, appeared  too  dry  and  heavy.  Finally,  I 
selected  Longfellow's  translation  of  Dante's 
"  Inferno,"  for  the  three-fold  reason  that  I  had 
little  knowledge  of  the  illustrious  Italian,  the 
book  itself  was  attractive,  and  the  title  seemed 
to  accord  with  the  heat  of  the  day.  No  sooner, 
however,  had  I  begun  to  read  than  indolence 
changed  to  an  absorbed  attention.  The  unique- 
ness of  the  theme,  the  vividness  of  Dante's  pic- 
tures, the  beauty  of  Longfellow's  translation 
fascinated  me.  The  book  became  a  constant 
companion  during  the  simimer,  and  when  the 
work  of  the  year  began  the  spell  of  Dante's 
great  personality  was  upon  me.  Again  and 
again  I  turned  from  him,  fearing  that  I  could 


vi  PREFACE 

not  afford  the  time  and  energy  required  truly  to 
appreciate  his  thought.  It  was  like  trying  to 
escape  the  law  of  gravitation.  Irresistibly  I 
was  drawn  back  to  one  who  not  only  gave  the 
intellect  rest  by  leading  the  thoughts  into  times 
so  different  from  our  own,  but  also  girded  the 
mind  with  power  by  bringing  it  into  the  pre- 
sence of  exalted  ideals,  intensest  passions,  and  ele- 
mental truths. 

De  Quincey  divides  Hterature  into  the  literature 
of  knowledge  and  the  literature  of  power.  Surely 
in  the  literature  of  power  the  "  Divine  Comedy  " 
is  unsurpassed.  Dante  makes  a  continuous  and 
irresistible  appeal  to  the  imagination,  compelling 
it  to  range  through  strange,  soul-stirring  expe- 
riences, stimulating  it  with  pictures  of  rarest 
beauty,  taxing  it  to  the  uttermost  to  conceive 
that  which  no  thought  can  grasp.  He  carries 
the  mind  at  once  into  the  region  of  the  loftiest 
and  most  commanding  truths,  and  in  that  invig- 
orating moral  atmosphere  it  comes  to  a  new  con- 
sciousness of  itself  and  its  possibilities. 

The  study  of  such  an  author  as  Dante  is  valu- 
able in  enabling  one  to  organize  his  knowledge 
and  to  resist  the  insidious  evil  of  reading  dis- 
connectedly many  themes  and  writers.  Mr. 
Lowell's  experience,  which  he  gave  in  one  of 


PREFACE  vli 

his  unpublished  college  lectures,  is  most  inter- 
esting. 

"  One  is  sometimes  asked  by  young  men  to 
recommend  to  them  a  course  of  reading.  My 
advice  would  always  be  to  confine  yourself  to 
tlie  supreme  books  in  whatever  Hterature  ;  still 
better,  to  choose  some  one  great  author  and  grow 
thoroughly  familiar  with  him.  For  as  all  roads 
lead  to  Rome,  so  they  all  likewise  lead  thence ; 
and  you  will  find  that  in  order  to  understand 
perfectly  and  weigh  exactly  any  really  vital 
piece  of  hterature,  you  will  be  gradually  and 
pleasantly  persuaded  to  studies  and  explorations 
of  which  you  little  dreamed  when  you  began, 
and  will  find  yourselves  scholars  before  you  are 
aware.  If  I  may  be  allowed  a  personal  illustra- 
tion, it  was  my  own  profound  admiration  for 
the  '  Divina  Commedia '  of  Dante  that  lured 
me  into  what  little  learning  I  possess.  For  re- 
member that  there  is  nothing  less  fruitful  than 
scholarship  for  the  sake  of  mere  scholarship,  nor 
anything  more  wearisome  in  the  attainment. 
But  the  moment  you  have  an  object  and  a 
centre,  attention  is  quickened,  the  mother  of 
memory ;  and  whatever  you  acquire  groups  and 
arranges  itself  in  an  order  which  is  lucid  because 
it   is   everywhere   in  intelHgent   relation   to  an 


vlii  PREFACE 

object  of  constant  and  growing  interest.  Thus, 
as  respects  Dante,  I  asked  myself,  What  are  his 
points  of  hkeness  or  unlikeness  with  the  authors 
of  classical  antiquity?  in  how  far  is  either  of 
these  an  advantage  or  a  defect?  What  and 
how  much  modern  literature  had  preceded  him  ? 
How  much  was  he  indebted  to  it  ?  How  far  had 
the  ItaHan  language  been  subdued  and  suppled 
to  the  uses  of  poetry  or  prose  before  his  time  ? 
How  much  did  he  color  the  style  or  thought  of 
the  authors  who  followed  him  ?  Is  it  a  fault  or 
a  merit  that  he  is  so  thoroughly  impregnated 
with  the  opinions,  passions,  and  even  prejudices 
not  only  of  his  age  but  his  country  ?  Was  he 
right  or  wrong  in  being  a  Ghibelline  ?  To 
what  extent  is  a  certain  freedom  of  opinion 
which  he  shows  sometimes  on  points  of  religious 
doctrine  to  be  attributed  to  the  humanizing  in- 
fluences of  the  Crusades  in  enlarging  the  horizon 
of  the  Western  mind  by  bringing  it  in  contact 
with  other  races,  religions,  and  social  arrange- 
ments ?  These  and  a  hundred  other  such  ques- 
tions were  constant  stimulants  to  thought  and 
inquiry,  stimulants  such  as  no  merely  objectless 
and,  so  to  speak,  impersonal  study  could  have 
supplied." 

It  is   certainly  of   inestimable   advantage  to 


PREFACE  ix 

come  under  the  influence  of  one  of  the  impe- 
rial minds  of  the  race,  who  challenges  every 
lover  of  his  to  high  thinking  and  lofty  feel- 
ing, and  who,  embodying  in  himself  the  life  of 
so  many  centuries,  readily  charms  the  mind  into 
various  fields  of  knowledge,  and  reveals  to  us 
our  own  time  by  unveiling  a  mighty  past. 

Dante  is  so  rich  in  suggestive  symbolism  that 
the  temptation  is  constant  to  read  into  his  im- 
agery meanings  entirely  foreign  to  his  thought, 
and  to  obscure  his  most  important  teachings  by 
mingling  them  in  a  mass  of  instructive  but  sub- 
ordinate details.  Both  of  these  temptations  I 
have  endeavored  to  resist,  striving  honestly  to 
interpret  Dante's  conceptions,  and  seeking  to 
secure  clearness  by  disclosing  only  the  frame- 
work of  his  thought. 

My  indebtedness  to  Mr.  Charles  Eliot  Norton 
is  very  great.  A  new  zest  was  given  to  my 
studies  when  I  became  acquainted  with  his  trans- 
lations of  "The  New  Life"  and  "The  Divine 
Comedy."  Although  Longfellow's  version  of 
the  "Comedy"  is  a  marvel  of  accurate  and 
comprehensive  scholarship,  and  is  ingeniously 
true  to  Dante  in  metre  and  style,  yet  it  is  impos- 
sible to  render  a  foreign  tongue  into  English 
verse  without  losing  much  of  the  flavor  of  the 


X  PREFACE 

original  and  obscuring  the  sense.  Mr.  Norton's 
prose  translations  avoid  these  defects.  He  fits 
our  English  words  to  Dante's  thought  so  closely 
that  we  feel  the  beauty  and  vigor  of  the  original^ 
and  more  easily  grasp  the  author's  unfamihar 
teachings.  When  the  substance  of  some  of  the 
following  chapters  appeared  in  the  "  Atlantic 
Monthly,"  Mr.  Norton  wrote  of  his  satisfaction 
in  the  justness  of  the  interpretations  and  the 
quahty  of  the  work,  and  expressed  a  wish  that 
the  studies  be  gathered  into  a  book.  On  the 
completion  of  the  volume  he  suggested  the  title 
and  generously  offered  to  read  the  proofs.  I 
certainly  do  not  seek  to  add  the  weight  of  his 
authority  to  any  comments  I  have  made  on  the 
value  of  mediaeval  or  modern  religious  doctrine, 
or  to  commit  him  to  the  approval  of  every  de- 
tail of  the  exposition ;  but  the  fact  that  this  in- 
terpretation of  Dante's  thought  has  won  his 
commendation  is  a  sufficient  guaranty  of  its 
accuracy. 

I  wish  also  to  express  my  obligation  to  the 
Rev.  Wilbert  L.  Anderson,  whose  fine  literary 
taste  has  saved  me  from  many  mfeHcities  in 
expression  ;  and  to  Mr.  William  B.  Parker  for 
much  encouragement  during  the  early  days  of 
my  Dante  studies. 


PREFACE  3d 

The  prose  quotations  from  the  "  Comedy " 
which  appear  in  the  book  are  taken  from  Pro- 
fessor Norton's  translations;  the  metrical  versions 
are  Longfellow's  unless  otherwise  indicated. 

CHARLES  ALLEN  DINSMORE. 

Boston,  July,  1901. 


i 


CONTENTS 


DANTE 

PAQE 

I.  Modern  Interest  in  Dante 3 

n.  The  Outward  Life 8 

m.   The  Llfb  within 16 

rV.  Characteristics  op  the  Prophet  ....  23 

V.  His  Place  in  History 35 

THE  BURDEN  OF  THE  MESSAGE 

I.  The  CatjTj  of  the  Prophet 47 

II.  The  Message 50 

III.  Its  Political  Aspect 51 

IV.  Its  Religious  Teaching 58 

V.  The  Value  of  his  Thought 62 

THE  VISION  OF  SIN 

I.  The  Dark  Spot  in  the  Universe      ....  77 

II.  The  "Inferno"  an  Experience     ....  79 

III.  The  Three  Degrees  of  Sin 81 

IV.  The  Nature  of  Sin .  83 

V.  Sin  personlfibd  in  Demons 84 

VI.  The  Atmosphere  Sin  creates         ....  91 

VII.  The  Effect  of  Sin  on  the  Soul       ....  94 
Vni.  An   Interpretation    of    Dante's    Conception   op 

Sin .  96 

THE  QUEST  OF  LIBERTY 

I.  The  Vitality  of  the  "Purgatorio"       .        .        .  109 

11.   The  Return  to  Eden 113 

III.  The  Holy  Mountain 115 

IV.  Truths  taught  in  Ante-Purgatory     .       .        .  117 
V.  The  Way  a  Soul  is  cleansed 119 

VI.  Where  the  Sense,  of  Sin  is  keenest  .       .       .  127 


xiv  CONTENTS 

Vn.  The  Mind  purged  from  an  Evil  Conscience,  and 

ENDUED   WITH   POWER 130 

VIII.  The  Doctrine  of  Expiation 134 

IX.  The  Absence  of  Christ 137 

X.  The  Separation  of  Morality  from  Religion     .  141 

XI.  Intercessory  Prayer 143 

XII.  A  Self-centred  Salvation 145 

XIII.  Purgatory  in  Literature 141 

XIV.  Conclusion 154 

THE  ASCENT  TO  GOD 

I.  The  Sublime  Canticle  of  the  Comedy    .        .        .  161 

II.  The  Theme  of  the  "Paradiso"    ....  165 

III.  The  Beginnings  of  the  Spiritual  Life  .        .        .  166 

IV.  The  Astronomical  Framework  of  the  Poem    .  169 
V.  Two  Fundamental  Truths 171 

VT.   Light,  Life,  Truth 175 

VII.   The    Supreme    Truths    taught    in    the    Lower 

Heavens 182 

a.  The  Shadow  of  Earth         .....  182 

6.  God's  Will  is  our  Peace 183 

c.  The  Influence  of  the  Stars     ....  184 

d.  The  Freedom  of  the  Will 187 

Vni.  The     Truths     declared    in     the     Unshadowed 

Planets 189 

a.  The  Sun 189 

b.  Mars 192 

c.  Jupiter 195 

d.  Saturn 196 

IX.  The  Two  Heavens  of  Redemptive  and  Celestial 

Mysteries 198 

X.  The  Ultimate  Beatitude 204 

XI.  A  Study  of  Spiritual  Values 210 

Appendix •       •       •       •       •  217 


DANTE 


"  The  central  man  in  all  the  world,  as  representing  in  perfect 
balance  the  imaginative,  moral,  and  intellectual  faculties,  all  at 
their  highest,  is  Dante."  —  John  Ruskin. 

"  The  secret  of  Dante's  power  is  not  far  to  seek.  Whoever 
can  express  himself  vi'iih.  the  full  force  of  unconscious  sincerity 
will  be  found  to  have  uttered  something  ideal  and  universal."  — 
James  Russell  Lowell. 

"  There  are  few  other  works  of  man,  perhaps  there  is  no  other, 
which  afford  such  evidence  as  the  Divine  Comedy  of  uninter- 
rupted consistency  of  purpose,  of  sustained  vigor  of  imagination, 
and  of  steady  force  of  character  controlling  alike  the  vagaries 
of  the  poetic  temperament,  the  wavering  of  human  purpose, 
the  fluctuation  of  human  powers,  the  untowardness  of  cir- 
cumstance. From  beginning  to  end  of  this  work  of  many 
years,  there  is  no  flagging  of  energy,  no  indication  of  weakness. 
The  shoulders,  burdened  by  a  task  almost  too  great  for  mortal 
strength,  never  tremble  under  their  load."  —  Charles  Eliot 
Norton. 


MODERN   INTEREST   IN   DANTE 

The  last  century  has  witnessed  a  remarkable 
awakening  of  interest  in  the  study  of  Dante.  It 
may  have  been  true  in  Macaulay's  day  that 
the  majority  of  young  people  who  read  Ital- 
ian would  "  as  soon  read  a  Babylonian  brick 
as  a  canto  of  Dante,"  but  to-day  multitudes 
are  learning  Italian  to  enjoy  the  sweetest  poet 
who  ever  spoke  that  tongue.  This  increasing 
appreciation  is  favored  by  a  peculiar  sympathy 
between  the  poet  and  the  spirit  of  our  age. 
These  are  the  days  of  the  microscope,  the  etch- 
ing tool,  and  the  specialist.  We  delight  in 
minute  investigation  and  exact  scholarship ;  we 
believe  in  realism  and  in  details.  A  poem  whose 
structure  is  as  deHcate  and  minutely  exact  as 
a  rare  Florentine  mosaic,  and  which,  though 
touching  the  heights  of  idealism,  is  reahstic  to 
the  last  degree,  cannot  fail  to  challenge  our  at- 
tention. It  was  different  in  an  age  which  looked 
up  to  Dr.  Johnson  as  a  model  in  composition, 
and  delighted  in  pompous  amplitude  of  diction. 
This  is  a  time  when  popular  rights  are  much 


4  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

vaunted,  and  Dante,  aristocratic  and  disdainful 
though  he  was,  unhesitatingly  ascribing  the 
evils  of  Florence  to  the  boorish  plebeians,  now 
is  counted  a  champion  of  the  people's  rights. 
The  tremendous  emphasis  he  placed  upon  the 
worth  of  the  soul  lifted  the  individual  man  above 
all  titles  and  claims  of  blood,  so  that  free  Italy 
found  in  him  its  prophet,  and  his  writings 
proved  an  armory  filled  with  keenest  weapons 
for  the  destruction  of  the  claims  of  the  Church 
to  temporal  dominion. 

Again,  the  nineteenth  century  was  distinc- 
tively scientific.  We  gave  over  a  hundred  years 
to  the  investigation  of  nature ;  and  the  price  has 
been  slight  compared  with  the  victories  we  have 
won.  But  a  too  steady  gaze  at  the  natural  has 
made  dim  the  supernatural.  The  soul  is  begin- 
ning to  cry  out  fiercely  against  its  bondage.  The 
prophets  of  materialism  and  agnosticism  have 
had  their  day,  and  now  the  clearest  voice  that  in 
modern  times  has  spoken  the  soul's  deep  con- 
sciousness of  its  mastery  over  matter  and  fate  is 
being  heard.  To  Dante  the  physical  is  fleeting, 
the  spiritual  is  the  real.  He  saw  time  under  the 
forms  of  eternity.  The  seen  is  the  stepping- 
stone  into  the  unseen.  This  is  the  steadily  grow- 
ins:  conviction  of  the  world.  In  a  time  of  vanish- 
ing  materiahsm,  with  its  attending  fatalism,  we 
exult  in  this  superb  reassertion  of  the  freedom 
of  the   will,  by  one  whom   Lowell   calls  "  the 


MODERN  INTEREST  IN  DANTE  5 

highest  spiritual  nature  that  has  expressed  itself 
in  rhythmical  form." 

The  great  revival  of  interest  in  him  is  also  due 
to  the  splendid  sincerity  of  his  convictions,  which 
quicken  those  moods  that  our  minds,  troubled 
with  doubt,  crave.  We  are  living  in  a  time  of 
intense  spiritual  desire.  We  are  stretching  out 
hands  toward  the  gloom  and  calling  into  the 
unknown.  Our  representative  poets  are  strug- 
gling for  a  faith,  and  the  strong  tide  of  interest 
in  our  best  literature  is  toward  spiritual  prob- 
lems. Our  greatest  writers  are  not  engrossed 
with  the  actions  of  men,  as  was  Homer ;  they 
are  not  absorbed  in  delineating  their  passions, 
as  was  Shakespeare ;  but  are  turning  their 
thoughts  into  the  deeps  of  the  soul  to  learn  the 
meaning  of  life  and  the  realities  confronting  it. 
Of  this  realm  of  the  spirit  Dante  is  preemi- 
nently the  prophet.  His  robust  faith  makes  to 
us  a  mighty  appeal.  We  receive  immense  in- 
spiration from  one,  who,  instead  of  leading  us 
from  doubt  to  faith,  begins  with  faith  and  leads 
us  up  to  God.  We  most  clearly  discern  the 
needs  of  our  own  age  when  we  see  them  mirrored 
in  our  most  characteristic  poet,  and  contrast  his 
mental  attitude  with  that  of  Dante.  Tennyson, 
in  "  In  Memoriam,"  says  :  — 

"I  falter  where  I  firmly  trod, 

And  falling  with  my  weight  of  cares 
Upon  the  great  world's  altar  stairs 
That  slope  through  darkness  up  to  God, 


6  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

"  I  stretch  faint  hands  of  faith,  and  grope, 
And  gather  dust  and  chaff,  and  call 
To  what  I  feel  is  Lord  of  all, 
And  faintly  trust  the  larger  hope." 

Dante  did  not  stretch  out  faint  hands,  but 
with  subHme  and  confident  faith  he  put  his  feet 
on  the  great  world's  altar  stairs  and  steadfastly 
followed  Reason  and  Revelation  until  they  led 
him  through  darkness  into  the  perfect  light. 

The  best  religious  life  of  our  day  is  flowing 
in  channels  not  of  contemplation,  but  of  philan- 
thropy. Our  saints  Hnger  longer  over  their 
frater-nosters  than  over  their  pater-nosters. 
Dante  is  certainly  not  the  prophet  of  socialism 
or  of  humanitarianism.  To  him  the  noblest 
form  of  religious  activity  was  the  absorption  of 
the  mind  in  pondering  the  deep  things  of  God. 
^'  They  shall  see  His  face "  was  to  him  a  more 
significant  description  of  Heaven  than  "  His  ser- 
vants shall  serve  Him."  In  this  he  does  not 
reflect  our  age ;  but  in  his  impressive  assertion 
of  the  reality  and  supremacy  of  the  spiritual,  in 
his  passionate  desire  to  know,  in  his  conception  of 
the  strenuousness  of  life,  and  the  austere  rigors 
of  the  moral  law,  he  finds  a  response  in  many 
hearts.  We  have  a  deep  need  of  just  what 
this  Tuscan  prophet  can  give.  Into  our  feverish 
life  he  brings  the  silence  of  the  centuries,  and  as 
we  enter  the  mystic  cathedral  of  his  thought,  — 

"  The  tumult  of  the  time  disconsolate 
To  inarticulate  murmurs  dies  away, 
While  the  eternal  ages  watch  and  wait." 


MODERN  INTEREST  IN  DANTE  7 

To  our  easy  tolerance  he  opposes  the  austeri- 
ties of  the  higher  law.  ,  When  we  confound 
moral  with  natural  evil,  he  quickens  our  per- 
ception of  how  voluntary  and  damnable  it  is, 
and  he  answers  our  feeble  agnosticism  with  a 
tremorless  assurance  that  the  Infinite  is  the 
mystery  of  light  and  not  of  darkness,  and  that 
man  can  know. 

Dante  is  the  greatest  prophet  of  the  Chris- 
tian centuries  because  he  has  given  utterance  to 
the  largest  aggregation  of  truth,  in  terms  of 
universal  experience,  and  in  a  form  permanent 
through  its  exceeding  beauty.  That  so  many 
minds  are  turning  to  him  for  light  and  vigor  is 
most  significant  and  hopeful. 


n 

THE    OUTWARD    LIFE 

Of  his  appearance  Boccaccio  gives  a  graphic 
description  —  "  Our  poet  was  of  middle  height 
and  stooped  when  he  walked,  being  now  of 
mature  years;  his  aspect  was  grave  and  quiet, 
and  his  dress  seemly  and  serious  as  became  his 
age.  His  face  was  long,  his  nose  aquiline,  his 
eyes  rather  large  than  Httle,  his  nostrils  large, 
and  the  underHp  a  little  prominent;  his  com- 
plexion was  dark,  his  hair  and  beard  thick, 
black,  and  curling,  and  his  countenance  always 
melancholy  and  thoughtful."  ^ 

Giovanni  Villani,  a  contemporary,  furnishes  in 
his  chronicle  a  most  interesting  glimpse  of  how 
Dante  appeared  to  those  who  knew  him :  "  This 
man  was  a  most  excellent  scholar  in  almost  every 
branch  of  learning,  albeit  he  was  a  layman  ;  he 
was  a  most  excellent  poet  and  philosopher,  and 
a  perfect  rhetorician  alike  in  prose  and  verse,  a 
very  noble  orator  in  public  speaking,  supreme  in 
rhyme,  with  the  most  polished  and  beautiful  style 
which  in  our  language  ever  was  up  to  his  time 

^   Vita  di  Dante. 


THE  OUTWARD  LIFE  9 

and  beyond  it.  This  Dante  because  of  his  know- 
ledge was  somewhat  haughty  and  reserved  and 
disdainful,  and  after  the  fashion  of  a  philoso- 
pher, almost  ungracious  and  not  easy  in  his  con- 
verse with  laymen  :  but  because  of  the  lofty 
virtues  and  knowledge  and  worth  of  so  great  a 
citizen,  it  seems  fitting  to  confer  lasting  memory 
upon  him  in  this  chronicle,  although,  indeed, 
his  noble  works,  left  to  us  in  writing,  are  the 
true  testimony  to  him,  and  are  an  honorable 
report  to  our  city."  ^ 

The  events  of  his  life  are  soon  told.  He  was 
born  in  Florence  in  1265,  of  the  ancient  and 
knightly  house  of  the  Alighieri,  whose  arms  were 
a  golden  wing  on  a  field  of  azure,  a  fit  em- 
blem of  that  darino^  o^enius  that  soared  into  the 
height  of  the  unseen.  He  was  also  fortunate  in 
his  name,  Dante,  a  contraction  of  Durante,  the 
''  enduring  one."  Whether  his  parents,  of  whom 
we  know  little,  detected  any  unusual  ability  in 
their  proud  and  reticent  boy,  it  is  impossible  to 
tell ;  but  they  certainly  spared  nothing  to  make 
his  education  complete,  according  to  the  standards 
of  the  day.  He  came  under  the  mfluence  of 
Brunetto  Latini,  "  the  first  master  in  refining  the 
Florentines,"  who  taught  the  ambitious  lad  how 
a  man  makes  himself  eternal.  Dante  must  have 
been  an  apt  pupil,  for  had  he  never  immortalized 
himself  as  a  poet,  he  would  have  been  known  as 

1  Croniche  Fiorentinef  B.  IX.  §  136. 


10  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

the  most  learned  man  o£  his  day,  his  insatiable 
mind  appropriating  all  the  knowledge  of  the  time. 
He  was  married  about  1291  to  Gemma  dei  Donati, 
and  throuofh  her  became  connected  with  Corso 
Donati,  one  of  the  most  powerful  nobles  of  Flor- 
ence. Whether  their  married  life  was  happy  or 
not  is  a  matter  of  conjecture.  Boccaccio  insinu- 
ates that  it  was  not,  and  one  can  easily  imagine 
that  the  poet  was  too  preoccupied  and  imperious 
to  make  an  ideal  husband.  Through  this  union 
several  children  were  born. 

In  the  stormy  controversies  that  distracted  the 
city  Dante  seems  to  have  been  the  recognized 
leader  of  the  moderates,  and  being,  as  Villani 
tells  us,  "  a  perfect  rhetorician  "  and  "  a  very 
noble  orator,"  he  is  said  to  have  been  sent 
on  many  important  diplomatic  missions.  The 
government  of  the  city  was  intrusted  to  seven 
officials,  —  six  priors  of  profession  and  one 
gonfaloniere  of  justice,  who  held  their  office  for 
only  two  months.  In  1300  Dante  was  elected 
one  of  the  priors,  and  in  a  letter  now  lost,  but  a 
part  of  wdiich  is  preserved  in  the  Life  of  him  by 
Leonardo  Bruni,  he  says,  "  All  my  w^oes  and 
misfortunes  had  their  cause  and  beginning  in 
the  unlucky  election  of  my  priorship.  Though 
I  was  not,  on  the  score  of  wisdom,  worthy, 
nevertheless  on  the  score  of  faith  and  age,  I 
was  not  unworthy  of  it."  The  lack  of  wisdom 
which  the  reflection  of  after  years  detected  in 


THE  OUTWARD  LIFE  11 

his  official  conduct  may  have  been  the  opposi- 
tion of  himself  and  his  colleagues  to  Cardinal 
Matteo,  whom  the  Pope  sent  as  his  legate  to 
pacify  Florence,  and  who,  faiHng  in  his  mission, 
departed  in  anger,  leaving  the  city  excommuni- 
cated and  interdicted. 

It  was  probably  during  his  priorship  that  the 
leaders  of  both  contending  parties  were  banished. 
Machiavelli  cites  this  as  a  proof  of  Dante's 
prudence  and  courage,  but  the  poet  may  have  felt 
otherwise  in  after  years. 

Poets  are  not  usually  good  road  builders, 
but  a  curious  document  has  quite  recently  come 
to  light  showing  that  the  writer  of  the  "Vita 
Nuova"  was  a  practical  man  of  affairs.  In 
April,  1301,  a  petition  was  presented  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Streets,  Squares,  and  Bridges,  asking 
that  a  certain  road  be  widened  and  mended. 
The  committee  ordered  the  work  to  be  done,  and 
Dante  was  appointed  to  oversee  the  whole 
matter. 

Angered  by  the  failure  of  Cardinal  Matteo's 
mission,  the  Pope  called  upon  Charles  of  Valois 
to  bring  Florence  to  her  senses,  and  gave  him  the 
title  of  "  Pacifier  of  Tuscany."  Dante  was  sent 
to  Eome  to  avert,  if  possible,  this  dire  calamity ; 
but  while  he  was  there  Charles  occupied  Florence, 
and  the  poet's  enemies,  being  in  possession  of  the 
government,  passed  sentence  of  exile  against  him 
on  the  27th  of  January,  1302,  with  a  heavy  fine 


12  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 


to  be  paid  within  two  months.  Dante  proving 
contumacious,  a  second  sentence  was  pronounced 
in  less  than  two  months,  condemning  him  to  be 
burned  aUve  if  he  should  ever  set  foot  wdthin  the 
jurisdiction  of  Florence.  Thus  did  the  unhappy 
city  pass  judgment  upon  herself. 

During  the  remaining  nineteen  years  of  his 
life  he  was  a  wanderer.  In  his  own  pathetic 
words  he  says  :  "  Through  almost  all  parts  where 
this  language  [Italian]  is  spoken,  a  wanderer, 
almost  a  beggar,  I  have  gone,  showing  against 
my  will  the  wound  of  fortune.  Truly  I  have 
been  a  ship  without  a  sail  and  without  a  rudder, 
borne  to  divers  ports  and  bays  and  shores  by  that 
hot  blastj  the  breath  of  doleful  poverty:  and  I 
have  appeared  vile  in  the  eyes  of  many,  who  per- 
haps through  some  fame  may  have  imagined  me 
in  other  form.  In  whose  view  was  not  only  my 
person  debased,  but  every  work  of  mine,  whether 
done  or  yet  to  do,  became  of  less  value."  ^ 

For  a  few  years  he  was  identified  with  his  fel- 
low exiles  in  attempts  to  reinstate  themselves. 
He  was  one  of  their  council  of  twelve ;  but  finally, 
disgusted  with  their  folly,  he  withdrew  and  formed 
a  party  of  himself.  His  wanderings  after  this 
are  quite  obscure.  Yillani  says  he  "  went  to  study 
at  Bologna,  and  then  to  Paris,  and  into  several 
parts  of  the  world."  In  the  year  1310,  when 
Henry  VII.  of  Luxemburg  arrived  in  Italy,  the 

^  Convito,  Tratt.  1,  Cap.  iii. 


THE  OUTWARD  LIFE  13 

hopes  of  the  exile  were  raised  to  the  highest  pitch, 
for  he  thought  that  it  was  this  prince  who  would 
restore  order  to  the  frenzied  state,  and  realize  the 
ideal  universal  Roman  Empire.  Hearing  that 
the  Florentines  were  preparing  to  resist  Henry, 
he  wrote  them  a  wrathful  letter,  reproaching  them 
bitterly  for  their  rebellion  against  the  lawful 
C«sar.  For  reply  his  beloved  city  reaffirmed  the 
previous  condemnation  against  him,  and  with  the 
untimely  death  of  Henry  Dante's  political  hopes 
forever  vanished. 

In  1316  the  gates  of  Florence  were  opened  to 
him  on  condition  of  his  paying  a  fine  and  doing 
penance,  but  with  noble  dignity  he  refused.  "  Is 
this,  then,  the  glorious  recall  of  Dante  Alighieri 
to  his  country  after  having  borne  exile  for  nearly 
fifteen  years  ?  Is  this  the  reward  of  innocence 
patent  to  all  ?  Of  perpetual  sweat  and  toil  of 
study  ?  Far  from  a  man,  the  familiar  friend  of 
philosophy,  be  the  reckless  humility  of  a  heart 
of  earth,  that  would  allow  him  to  make  an  offer- 
ing of  himself  as  if  he  were  a  caitiff  !  Far  be  it 
from  a  man,  a  preacher  of  justice,  to  pay  those 
who  have  done  him  wrong  as  for  a  favor  ! 

"  This  is  not  the  way  for  me  to  return  to  my 
country  ;  but  if  another  can  be  found  that  shall 
not  derogate  from  the  fame  and  honor  of  Dante, 
that  mil  I  take  with  no  lagging  steps.  But  if 
by  no  such  way  Florence  is  to  be  entered,  then 
Florence  I  shall  never  enter.     And  what  then  ! 


14  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

Can  I  not  everywhere  behold  the  mirrors  of  the 
sun  and  stars  ?  Contemplate  the  sweetest  truths 
under  any  sky,  without  first  giving  myself  up 
inglorious,  nay,  ignominious,  to  the  populace  and 
the  city  of  Florence  ?  And  bread,  I  trust,  shall 
not  fail  me."  ^ 

The  weary  exile,  ever  hoping  honorably  to 
return  to  the  fair  fold  in  which  he  slept  when  a 
lamb,  continued  his  studies  and  his  wanderings. 
His  longest  stay  was  at  Verona,  where  he  was 
received  and  nobly  entertained  by  Can  Grande 
della  Scala.  His  last  refuge  was  at  Ravenna, 
where  he  died  in  1321,  shortly  after  completing 
the  Sacred  Poem,  to  which  heaven  and  earth  had 
set  their  hand.  Thus  was  fulfilled  the  wish  of 
his  life,  as  expressed  in  the  closing  words  of  the 
"  Vita  Nuova,"  that  he  might  go  to  behold  the 
face  of  his  lady  when  he  had  said  that  of  her 
which  was  never  said  of  any  woman.  Death 
was  a  merciful  release.  Having  looked  into  the 
face  of  God  he  was  not  compelled  to  tame  his 

"  mind  down  from  its  own  infinity  — 
To  live  in  narrow  ways  with  little  men, 
A  common  sight  to  every  common  eye." 

He  was  buried  with  honors  suitable  to  his  lofty 
genius  under  a  monument  bearing  an  inscription 
which  he  is  said  to  have  written  upon  his  death- 
bed.    The  paraphrase  is  Mr.  Lowell's. 

1  Letter  to  a  Florentine  Friend.     The  authenticity  of  this  let- 
ter is  much  debated. 


THE  OUTWARD  LIFE  16 

"  The  rights  of  Monarchy,  the  Heavens,  the  Stream  of  Fire,  the 

Pit, 
In  vision  seen,  I  sang  as  far  as  to  the  Fates  seemed  fit  ; 
But  since  my  soul,  an  alien  here,  hath  flown  to  nobler  wars, 
And  happier  now,  hath  gone  to  seek  its  Maker  'mid  the  stars, 
Here  am  I  Dante  shut,  exiled  from  the  ancestral  shore, 
Whom  Florence,  the  of  all  least-loving  mother,  bore." 


m 

THE    LIFE   WITHIN 

But  if  the  external  events  of  his  wanderings 
furnish  but  a  meagre  record,  there  was  taking 
place  in  the  soul  of  the  great  ideahst  an  experi- 
ence of  such  mingled  pathos  and  beauty  that 
it  has  held  the  fascinated  attention  of  the  world 
for  nearly  six  centuries.  We  know  as  Httle  of 
the  outward  life  of  Dante  as  of  that  of  Homer 
or  Shakespeare ;  but  of  his  spiritual  struggles, 
the  motives  w^hich  governed  him,  the  judgments 
he  formed,  the  passions  that  at  one  moment 
glowed  hot  with  righteous  fury  and  the  next 
burned  with  a  seraphic  love,  we  have  a  most 
noble  disclosure.  In  the  fine  words  of  Marti- 
neau,  "  the  best  end  of  all  a  [man's]  work  is  to 
show  us  what  he  is.  The  noblest  workers  of 
our  world  bequeath  us  nothing  so  great  as  the 
image  of  themselves."  While  the  personahties 
of  his  compeers  in  song  are  lost  in  their  work, 
Dante  has  thrown  the  shadow  of  his  imasre  on 
this  world  and  on  the  world  that  comes  here- 
after. The  most  reticent  of  men  has  given  us 
the  clearest  revelation  of  himself. 


THE  LIFE  WITHIN  17 

When  he  was  nine  years  of  age,  he  tells  us 
in  his  quaint  language,  "  the  glorious  Lady  of 
my  mind,  who  was  called  Beatrice  by  many  who 
knew  not  what  to  call  her,  first  appeared  to  my 
eyes."  Her  coming  was  the  awakening  of  love, 
and  the  beginning  of  that  new  life  which  was  to 
ascend  continually  — 

"  uublasted  by  the  glory,  though  he  trod 
From  star  to  star  to  reach  the  almighty  throne."  ^ 

Who  this  Beatrice  was  is  a  matter  of  much  dis- 
pute. The  statement  of  Boccaccio,  who  wrote 
some  thirty  years  after  Dante's  death,  that  she 
was  Beatrice  Portinari,  the  daughter  of  a  near 
neighbor,  who  afterward  married  Simone  de' 
Bardi,  and  died  in  1290  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
four,  has  usually  been  accepted.  But  it  seems 
more  probable  that  she  was  some  maiden  to 
whom  Dante  gave  the  name  of  Beatrice,  the 
blessed  one,  to  hide  her  identity. 

When  he  was  eighteen,  they  again  met  and 
she  saluted  him  with  such  ineffable  courtesy 
"  that  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  saw  all  the  bounds 
of  bliss."  To  her  the  poet  gave  all  the  chival- 
rous devotion  of  his  heart.  She  became  to  him 
the  embodiment  of  everything  divine,  and  under 
the  sweet  influence  she  exerted  over  his  soul,  he 
lived  an  innocent  life  of  simple  religious  faith, 
undisturbed  by  mental  struggle  and  unshadowed 
by  doubt. 

1  Byron,  The  Prophecy  of  Dantef  canto  i. 


18  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

With  the  death  of  Beatrice  in  his  twenty-fifth 
year  the  first  great  sorrow  came  into  his  fife. 
The  blow  stagfijered  him.  His  serene  faith  be- 
came  clouded.  He  began  to  question  and  to 
doubt,  entering  upon  that  chill,  foggy  land  of 
mental  and  spiritual  uncertainty,  which  for  all 
earnest  souls  lies  between  the  simple  faith  of 
childhood  and  the  assured  convictions  of  maturer 
years.  To  assuage  his  grief  he  began  the  study 
of  philosophy,  and  threw  himself  into  the  active 
political  conflicts  of  his  time.  Many  go  so  far 
as  to  assert  that  he  yielded  to  sensual  lusts, 
sinking  far  below  the  moral  elevation  of  his 
youth.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the  year  1300, 
when,  as  he  tells  us  in  the  opening  of  the  "  Divine 
Comedy,"  he  found  himself  in  a  dark  wood, 
marks  a  real  epoch  in  his  life,  and  explains  why 
he  chose  it  as  the  time  of  his  wonderful  journey. 
Pope  Boniface  YHI.  proclaimed  a  jubilee  at 
Rome,  to  extend  from  Christmas,  1299,  to  Easter, 
1300,  and  the  pilgrims  who  visited  continually 
for  fifteen  days  the  churches  of  St.  Peter  and 
St.  Paul  were  "  granted  full  and  entire  remission 
of  all  their  sins,  both  the  guilt  and  the  punish- 
ment thereof,  they  having  made  or  to  make  con- 
fession of  the  sins.  And  for  consolation  of  the 
Christian  pilgrims,  every  Friday  and  every  solemn 
feast  day,  was  shown  in  St.  Peter's  the  Veronica, 
the  true  image  of  Christ,  on  the  napkin."  Dante 
may  have  snatched  time  from  his  engrossing  pub- 


THE   LIFE   WITHIN  19 

lie  duties  to  make  this  pilgrimage,  not  as  a  mere 
on-looker,  but  as  a  believer  who  felt  the  need  of 
the  forgiveness  promised.  The  sight  of  the  vast 
throngs  of  eager  pilgrims,  the  beholding  of  the 
true  face  of  his  suffering  Saviour  on  the  sacred 
cloth,  the  hours  spent  in  meditation  and  worship, 
evidently  made  a  deep  impression  upon  his  ardent 
and  sensitive  spirit.  Florence,  with  its  distrac- 
tions and  ambitions,  seemed  far  away,  while  the 
eternal  world,  with  its  solemn  and  imposing  reali- 
ties, reasserted  its  supremacy  over  his  hushed  and 
humbled  mind.  He  realized  that  in  the  fervor 
of  his  patriotic  devotion  to  his  city,  in  his  zeal- 
ous study  of  a  worldly  philosophy,  in  his  intense 
occupation  with  temporal  things,  and  perhaps  in 
sensual  indulgence,  he  had  wandered  from  the 
true  way  and  become  lost  in  an  entangling 
forest.  In  the  stillness  of  those  days  of  thought 
and  prayer  he  resolved  to  seek  a  worthier  success. 
He  would  climb  the  sunlit  mountain  by  putting 
forth  all  his  powers ;  he  would  live  more  nobly 
and  valiantly. 

On  his  return  to  Florence  he  is  drawn  into 
the  political  struggles  of  the  day,  he  becomes 
prior,  is  sent  on  his  fruitless  embassy  to  the 
Pope,  is  exiled,  and  tries  vainly  to  reenter  his 
native  city.  In  the  chagrin  of  defeat  and  in  the 
bitterness  of  his  disappointment  he  perceives  that 
he  has  been  seekingr  the  unattainable.  Then  it 
is  that  he  hears  a  voice  that  through  long  silence 


20  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

seemed  hoarse.  It  is  the  calling  of  reason,  awak- 
ened in  his  bewildered  soul  by  divine  grace 
approaching  him  through  its  supreme  revela- 
tions ;  and  the  courteous  Mantuan  spirit  —  a 
type  of  that  right  reason  which  apprehends  the 
nature  of  sin  and  its  penalties,  and  points  out 
the  paths  of  virtue  and  liberty  —  leads  him  into 
the  better  way.  Thus  he  returns  to  the  faith  of 
his  boyhood,  and  gladly  yields  himself  again 
to  the  sway  of  those  transcendent  truths  which 
to  him  found  their  fittest  symbol  in  Beatrice. 

These  three  distinct  periods  of  his  life  —  that 
of  child-like  faith  and  joy ;  succeeded  by  doubt, 
worldliness,  and  intellectual  pride  ;  and  ending  in 
triumphant  religious  assurance  —  find  expression 
in  three  works  of  marvelous  beauty  and  power, 
which  together  give  us  an  unparalleled  revela- 
tion of  God's  way  with  a  soul. 

The  first,  the  "  Vita  Nuova,"  or  the  New  Life, 
deals  with  the  youthful  period,  briefly  mentions 
the  lapse,  and  closes  with  an  account  of  a  vision 
of  Beatrice  which  caused  him  to  resolve  to  say 
of  her  "  what  was  never  said  of  any  woman." 
This  book  is  one  of  the  sweetest  love  stories  in 
the  world.  No  fairer  figure  is  enshrined  in 
literature  than  that  of  Beatrice  as  her  lover 
paints  her.  She  has  a  delicacy  of  reserve,  an 
unconscious  dignity,  a  grace  and  courtesy,  which 
give  her  an  ineffable  charm.  Read  as  plain 
prose  the  tale  seems  bizarre  enough,  and  Dante 


THE  LIFE  WITHIN  21 

appears  almost  ridiculous,  so  shaken  is  he  by  his 
passion ;  but  as  Mr.  Charles  Eliot  Norton  has  so 
well  explained :  "  The  story  based  upon  actual 
experience,  is  ordered  not  in  literal  conformity 
with  fact,  but  according  to  the  ideal  of  the  im- 
agination :  and  its  reality  does  not  consist  in 
the  exactness  of  its  record  of  events,  but  in  the 
truth  of  its  poetic  conception.  Under  the  narra- 
tive lies  an  allegory  of  the  power  of  love  to 
transfigure  earthly  things  into  the  likeness  of 
heavenly,  and  to  lift  the  soul  from  things 
material  and  transitory  to  things  spiritual  and 
eternal."  ^ 

The  period  of  his  lapse  from  his  high  moral 
elevation  finds  its  monument  in  the  "  Convito,"  or 
Banquet.  During  the  earlier  part  of  this  ex- 
perience Dante  had  written  many  canzoni,  all  of 
them  of  great  beauty  and  two  of  them  at  least 
strongly  expressive  of  earthly  passions.  Finding 
himself  in  this  dark  wood  and  wishins:  to  redeem 
his  reputation  from  the  charge  of  fickleness,  he 
resolves  to  allegorize  these  poems,  showing  that 
the  philosophy  in  which  he  is  now  absorbed  is 
one  with  the  Beatrice  of  his  younger  days.  But 
the  task  proves  too  great,  some  of  the  canzoni 
breathe  a  spirit  altogether  alien  to  the  lofty  purity 
of  the  blessed  one.  They  are  not  to  be  explained 
away,  but  to  be  repented  of.  His  study  of  philo- 
sophy, beginning  as  mere  worldly  wisdom,  has 
^  The  Warner  Classics.     Poets,  p.  83. 


22  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

led  him  up  to  divine  truth,  and  Beatrice  touches 
his  soul  again  with  all  her  former  beauty  and 
power.  She  becomes  to  him  the  symbol  o£  God's 
revelation  of  Himself  to  men,  the  embodiment  of 
those  radiant  truths  which  lift  the  soul  to  eternal 
blessedness.  With  the  enthronement  of  his  old 
faith  and  love  in  more  than  their  original  glory,  he 
abandoned  the  "  Convito  "  and  resolved  to  speak 
no  more  of  this  blessed  one,  until  he  could  more 
worthily  treat  of  her.  Thus  he  entered  upon  the 
last  period  of  his  life,  when  his  enkindled  faith 
"  is  the  spark  which  afterwards  dilates  to  vivid 
flame,  and  like  a  star  in  heaven  "  will  shine  for- 
ever in  the  "  Divine  Comedy." 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF   THE    PROPHET 

Like  all  men  who  ever  cut  their  names  deep 
in  the  world's  memory  he  had  unswerving  con- 
fidence in  his  own  powers.  With  perfect  assur- 
ance he  numbers  himself  with  Homer  and  Virg-il 
and  the  illustrious  poets  of  antiquity  as  the  sixth 
amid  so  much  wit.  "  Follow  thy  star,"  says 
Latini,  "  thou  canst  not  miss  the  glorious  port."  ^ 
"  My  name  as  yet  makes  no  great  sound,"  ^  he 
declares  in  "  Purgatory,"  but  he  everywhere 
assumes  that  his  verdict  will  confer  immortality 
of  honor  or  shame,  and  that  he  has  but  to  utter 
his  vision  for  the  world  to  listen.  He  is  at  peace 
because  his  life  has  a  future  far  beyond  men's 
perfidies. 

The  popular  notion  of  Dante  has  been  created 
by  the  pictures  which  his  death-mask  inspired, 
and  by  the  mistaken  idea  that  he  roasted  all  his 
enemies  in  Hell  and  enthroned  his  few  friends  in 
Heaven.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  the 
common  idea  is  that  he  was  a  volcano  in  a  con- 
stant state  of  eruption,  forever  pouring  hot  lava 
1  Inf.  XV.  55,  56.  ^  p^^^,  ^iy,  21. 


24  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

on  the  many  objects  of  his  wrath.  It  must  be 
confessed  that  a  superficial  reading  of  the 
"  Comedy  "  does  leave  this  impression.  Dante 
appears  to  be  a  spirit,  grievously  wounded  by  its 
wrongs,  that  turns  upon  its  injurers  with  a  fero- 
city of  resentment  and  an  almost  superhuman 
intensity  of  vindictiveness  dreadful  to  contem- 
plate. One  has  a  feeling  akin  to  horror  at  see- 
ing him  sitting  in  his  boat  on  the  Styx,  gloating 
over  the  sufferings  of  Filippo  Argenti,  and  re- 
marking :  "  I  saw  such  rending  of  him  by  the 
muddy  folk  that  I  still  praise  God  therefor,  and 
thank  Him  for  it."  ^ 

We  seem  to  witness  the  cold  drip  of  his  malig- 
nity as,  in  the  pit  of  the  barrators,  with  fiendish 
composure,  he  calls  one  by  one  the  travestied 
names  of  the  Florentine  authorities  by  whom  he 
was  banished.^ 

There  seems  to  be  a  pitiless  savagery  of  soul, 
for  which  we  can  scarce  forgive  him,  when  in  the 
depth  of  Hell,  where  the  cold  congealed  the  tears 
of  the  sufferers,  hearing  one  pleading  that  the  veil 
of  ice  be  lifted  a  moment  from  his  eyes  that  he 
might  have  the  poor  consolation  of  grief  un- 
checked, Dante  promised  on  condition  that  the 
lost  soul  reveal  its  identity.  Not  only  did  the 
wretch  tell  his  name,  but    also   his    story ;    yet 

1  Inf.  viii.  58-60. 

2  Inf.   xxi.  118-123  ;  vide  Moore,    Studies  in  Dante,  second 
series,  p.  232. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  PROPHET         25 

when  he  begged  for  the  fulfillment  of  the  promise, 
the  poet  turned  away.  "  I  opened  them  not  for 
him,  and  to  be  rude  to  him  was  courtesy."  ^ 

But  Dante  seems  to  carry  this  fierceness  of  per- 
sonal hatred  into  Purgatory.  On  the  ledge  of 
the  envious  he  delivers  perhaps  the  most  stinging 
invective  that  was  ever  pointed  at  one's  father- 
land. One  of  the  shades  describino^  the  course 
of  the  Arno  says  that  in  the  valley  from  the 
river's  spring  to  its  mouth,  "  virtue  is  driven 
away  as  an  enemy  by  all  men,  like  a  snake." 
The  people  dwelhng  at  the  source  are  "  foul  hogs, 
more  fit  for  acorns  than  for  other  food  ; "  com- 
ing down  to  Arezzo,  it  finds  "  snarling  curs  ; " 
the  dosrs  are  chano^ed  to  "  wolves  "  when  Flor- 
ence  is  reached  ;  while  at  Pisa  it  finds  "  foxes 
full  of  fraud." ' 

Even  in  Paradise  there  seems  to  be  a  rancorous 
spot  in  his  heart,  unpenetrated  by  celestial  light. 
With  fierce  disdain  he  speaks  of  his  companions 
in  exile,  as  "  all  ungrateful,  all  senseless,  and  im- 
pious." ^  In  the  Empyrean  the  splendor  of  God 
and  the  high  triumph  of  the  kingdom  are  insuffi- 
cient to  divert  his  mind  from  his  enemies,  for  the 
sight  of  the  vacant  seat  where  Henry  VII.  is  to 
sit  causes  him  to  turn  his  thoughts  to  the  Pope 
who  had  betrayed  the  hopes  of  Italy,  and  he 
makes  the  last  words  of  Beatrice,  "  sweet  guide 
and  dear,"  a  damnation  of  this  Pope  to  a  hole  in 

1  Inf.  xxxiii.  149,  150.  ^  Purg.  xiv.  ^  Par.  xvii.  64. 


26  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

the  third  boloia  of  the  eighth  circle  of  Hell,  where 
he  shall  push  Boniface  VIII.  down  a  little  deeper !  ^ 

"  Merciful  heavens  !  "  we  exclaim,  "  has  this 
man  no  heart !  Is  Lethe  sufficient  to  make  him 
forofet  his  own  sins,  but  ineffective  to  wash  out 
the  memory  of  the  sins  of  others  !  " 

But  a  deeper  study  of  this  prophet  of  the  fiery 
heart  shows  that  the  case  against  him  is  not  so 
bad  as  the  first  reading  would  indicate.  Part  of 
the  explanation  of  his  apparent  cruelty  undoubt- 
edly lies  in  the  fact  that  the  poet  would  teach  us 
that  character  is  influenced  by  environment.  In 
the  circle  of  wrath  he  is  wrathful,  in  the  pit  of 
traitors  he  is  false.  He  may  also  have  sympa- 
thized with  the  Jesuitical  casuistry  that  no  faith 
need  be  kept  with  traitors,  and  that  with  the  f  ro- 
ward  it  is  right  to  show  one's  self  fro  ward.  We 
must  remember,  what  the  vividness  of  the  poem 
causes  us  easily  to  forget,  that  we  are  reading  not 
a  descrijDtion  of  actual  events  but  of  imagined  in- 
cidents, all  of  them  having  a  symbolic  meaning. 
We  are  to  recall  also  the  doctrine  of  the  Church 
that  the  very  saints  in  glory  have  no  charity  to- 
ward sinners  under  the  condemnation  of  God. 
Dante  undoubtedly  laid  to  heart  Virgil's  reproof 
when  he  wept  at  the  sad  punishment  of  the  sooth- 
sayers :  "  Who  is  more  wicked  than  he  who  feels 
compassion  at  the  Divine  judgment  ?  "  ^  A  man 
is  not  to  be  more  just  than  God.     Moreover,  we 

1  Par,  XXX.  145-148.  ^  /„y;  ^x.  29,  30. 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF  THE   PROPHET         27 

must  constantly  bear  in  mind  that  he  felt  him- 
self to  be  a  prophet  of  justice.  He  is  making  no 
idle  journey  to  the  throne  of  the  Almighty,  that 
there  he  may  be  rapt  in  a  swoon  of  mystic  de- 
light. He  stands  before  the  Ineffable  Glory,  that 
from  that  lofty  height,  and  in  the  clear  light 
that  streams  from  the  Eternal  Fountain,  he  may 
better  behold  the  needs  and  conditions  of  earth. 
No  splendor  of  supernal  brightness  for  a  mo- 
ment makes  him  fororet  his  mission.  As  God's 
prophet  he  will  hate  sin  as  God  hates  it ;  he  will 
abhor  evil  with  all  the  ceaseless  loathing  of  the 
Most  Holy.  He  will  be  as  "  harsh  as  truth  and 
as  uncompromising  as  justice."  If  Divine  Jus- 
tice and  Love  ordained  the  supreme  penalties  of 
Hell,  then  he  will  rejoice  in  them.  His  unfal- 
terinof  heart  does  not  shrink  from  the  task  of 
seeking  to  love  as  God  loves  and  to  hate  as  God 
hates ;  and  so  in  his  immortal  poem  he  has  re- 
vealed to  the  world  a  passion  of  hatred,  a  magnifi- 
cence of  wrath,  an  indignation  so  profound  and 
monumental  that  he  shocks  our  shallow  kindliness 
unspeakably.  Probably  that  is  exactly  what 
Dante  meant  to  do.  "  Do  not  I  hate  them,  0 
Lord,  that  hate  thee  ?  and  am  not  I  grieved  wdth 
those  that  rise  up  against  thee?  Yea,  I  hate 
them  with  perfect  hatred.  I  count  them  mine 
enemies."  ^ 

Yet  it  is  perilous  for  a  man,  however  preternat- 

1  Ps.cxxxix.2,  22. 


28  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

urally  endowed,  to  lift  the  thunderbolts  of  the 
Almighty.  To  break  the  commandment  "  judge 
not  "  must  inevitably  bring  its  penalty.  When 
one  identifies  himself  with  the  judgment  seat  of 
God  he  is  prone  to  mistake  personal  sentiment  for 
holy  anger,  and  to  smite  where  he  should  heal. 
We  can  no  more  justify  Dante  for  many  of  his 
venomous  sentences  on  the  ground  of  his  strenu- 
ous moral  earnestness  than  we  can  excuse  Wen- 
dell Phillips  for  calling  Lincoln  "  the  blood- 
hound of  slavery,"  or  Garrison  as  with  benig- 
nant smile  he  describes  the  church  as  "  the  spawn 
of  Hell !  " 

Samuel  Johnson  has  said  that  a  man  can- 
not love  well  unless  he  is  a  good  hater.  No 
one  disputes  the  stinging  ferocity  of  Dante's 
hatred  ;  but  few  appreciate  that  his  love  was  as 
sweet  and  beautiful  as  his  wrath  was  bitter. 
There  was  in  his  passionate  heart  affection  im- 
measurable in  its  wealth  of  exquisite  tenderness. 
Lord  Byron  in  his  diary  makes  this  comment  on 
Frederick  Schleofel's  statement  that  "  Dante's 
chief  defect  is  the  want,  in  a  word,  of  gentle 
feelings  :  "  "  Of  gentle  feehngs.  And  Francesca 
of  Rimini,  and  the  father's  feelings  in  Ugohno, 
and  Beatrice,  and  the  Pia  !  Why,  there  is  a  gen- 
tleness in  Dante  above  all  o^entleness  when  he  is 
tender.  Who  but  Dante  could  have  introduced 
any  gentleness  at  all  into  hell  ?  Is  there  any  in 
Milton  ?     No  :  and  Dante's  heaven  is  all  love, 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  PROPHET         29 

and  glory,  and  majesty."  Stern  and  forbidding 
as  this  austere  prophet  often  seems,  no  soul  in 
literature  has  been  more  completely  and  continu- 
ously dominated  by  love.  Love  first  woke  his 
spirit  to  life,  and  ruled  all  his  earlier  years.  One 
cannot  read  the  "  New  Life  "  even  casually  with- 
out being  impressed  with  the  constant  recurrence 
of  the  words,  "  sweet,"  "  blessed,"  "  gentle." 
After  the  death  of  Beatrice  the  ardent  affection 
of  his  heart  went  out  toward  Philosophy,  and  he 
beo["an  "  to  feel  so  much  of  her  sweetness  that 
love  of  her  chased  away  and  destroyed  every 
other  thouofht."  When  he  found  that  this  love 
of  truth  merged  itself  through  divine  philosophy 
in  the  old  affection  for  the  blessed  one,  he  came 
under  the  sway  of  powers  which  lifted  his  soul 
to  such  heio^hts  of  thouoht  and  feelino^  that  he 
wrought  that  which  will  ever  stand  as  one  of  the 
noblest  expressions  of  the  mind's  power.  If  the 
wrath  of  this  censor  of  mankind  is  unsurpassed 
in  strength,  the  purity,  tenderness,  sublimity  of 
his  love  is  equally  conspicuous.  Only  a  mind  of 
singular  beauty  could  have  conceived  a  Purga- 
tory, not  hot  with  sulphurous  flames,  but  healing 
the  wounded  spirit  with  the  light  of  the  shimmer- 
ing sea,  the  glories  of  the  morning,  the  perfume 
of  flowers,  the  touch  of  angels,  the  living  forms 
of  art,  and  the  sweet  strains  of  music.  Only  a 
spirit  of  majestic  purity  and  love  could  have 
thought  out  a  Heaven,  unstained  by  one  sensuous 


30  THE  TEACHINGS   OF  DANTE 

line,  revealing'  glory  upon  glory  until  the  ascend- 
ing soul  is  lost  in  the  splendor  of  incommuni- 
cable truth  and  the  ardor  of  unutterable  love. 

Out  of  this  loftiness  of  soul  there  came  a  chiv- 
alrous devotion  to  truth  that  elsewhere  finds  no 
such  rapturous  expression.  The  beauty  of  truth 
is  the  smile  of  Beatrice,  and  its  demonstrations  are 
her  eyes.  But  as  by  faith  he  gazed  on  the  beau- 
teous orbs  he  seemed  to  touch  all  the  depths  of 
o-race,  and  he  needed  the  admonition  that  there 
are  services  to  be  rendered  as  well  as  truths  to  be 
contemplated. 

"  Turn  thee  about  and  listen  ; 
Not  in  mine  eyes  alone  is  Paradise."  ^ 

The  glory  of  the  truth  grew  so  insufferable  as 
he  ascended  that  at  last  Beatrice  could  not  smile, 
lest  at  the  effulgence  his  mortal  power  should  be 
as  a  bough  shattered  by  the  lightning ;  and  this 
knightly  soul  could  imagine  no  greater  bliss  than 
to  behold  forever  the  essence  of  truth  with  eyes 
unveiled,  and  thus  to  glow  eternally  with  love. 

But  Dante  felt  that  he  did  more  than  love 
truth  in  the  abstract ;  he  loved  it  in  men. 

"  The  leaves  wherewith  embowered  is  all  the  garden 
Of  the  Eternal  Gardener,  do  I  love 
As  much  as  he  has  granted  them  of  good."  ^ 

Moreover  it  was  a  love  so  of"enuine  that  it  did  not 
exhaust  itself  in  mere  rhapsody,  but  became  the 
fountain    of   his    splendid    courage.     He    loved 
1  Par.  xviii.  20,  21.  2  Par.  xxvi.  64-06. 


CHARACTEKISTICS  OF  THE  PROPHET         31 

truth  so  earnestly  that  to  proclaim  it  he  was  will- 
ing to  sacrifice  all.  Every  man  who  attains  em- 
inence prizes  most  highly  the  recognition  given 
him  by  his  native  place  ;  and  it  was  the  constant 
hope  of  Dante  that  he  might  return  to  Florence, 
and  receive  the  laurel  crown  by  the  baptismal 
font  where  he  first  entered  into  faith.  Yet  not 
to  gratify  these  desires  will  he  blur  a  single  truth. 
He  will  "  make  the  whole  vision  manifest,"  and 
let  the  "  scratching  be  ever  where  the  itch  is." 
He  will  be  no  timid  friend  of  truth,  but  like  the 
wind  will  strike  heaviest  the  loftiest  summits. 
He  will  seal  his  loyalty  by  making  a  willing  ofPer- 
inof  of  all  that  is  dear  to  him.  Above  all  thinsfs 
Dante  loathed  a  coward.  He  showed  his  con- 
tempt by  spewing  all  craven,  shame-laden  souls 
out  of  both  Heaven  and  Hell.  He  feared  to  make 
the  great  refusal.  With  dehberate  resolve  he 
put  aside  all  personal  considerations  and  wrote 
the  bravest,  most  unsparing  denunciatory  song 
in  any  language.  It  takes  a  high-souled  man  to 
give  all  for  righteousness'  sake.  This  unflinch- 
ing and  sustained  devotion  to  his  ideal  made  it 
possible  for  him  to  undertake  the  most  tremendous 
task  ever  attempted  by  a  poet.  He  would  have 
failed  in  his  high  endeavor  had  not  the  fibre  of  his 
manhood  equaled  the  quahty  of  his  genius.  It 
was  not  enough  that  he  have  rare  artistic  skill  and 
poetic  gifts  of  superlative  merit.  Others  have  had 
these  and  have  fallen  short  of  the  noblest  eminence. 


32  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

He  has  taken  his  place  among  the  preeminent 
poets  of  the  world  because  he  held  his  brilliant 
intellectual  endowments,  his  enormous  erudition, 
and  the  glowing  ardors  of  his  temperament  in 
bondage  to  a  spiritual  integrity  and  heroism  of 
soul  which  enabled  him,  through  long  years  of 
suffering,  dolorous  poverty,  and  arduous  labors? 
to  keep  himself  steadily  to  one  almost  superhu- 
man task.  This  capacity  of  complete  absorption 
in  one  prodigious  work,  this  fusion  of  his  whole 
being  in  his  mission,  this  power  of  unfaltering 
concentration  upon  one  masterly  achievement,  is 
as  conspicuous  a  characteristic  of  Dante  —  "  the 
enduring  one  "  —  as  his  masterful  genius.  This 
self-sustaining  quality  of  his  manhood,  permit- 
ting him  to  make  his  work  vital  by  sinking  his 
whole  life  in  it,  has  made  him  a  most  distinguished 
illustration  of  the  fundamental  law  of  success  in 
all  lines  of  endeavor  ;  "  whosoever  will  lose  his 
life  shall  find  it."  He  welded  himself  to  his  task 
as  by  fire,  and  there  came  into  his  heart  a  myste- 
rious strength  and  into  his  mind  a  supernal  illu- 
mination. 

If  to  Dante's  volcanic  wrath,  his  beauty  of 
spirit,  his  rapturous  love  of  truth,  his  unwearied 
loyalty  to  his  duty,  we  add  a  pity  which,  as  Car- 
lyle  has  said,  was  as  tender  as  a  woman's,  and  a 
patrician  pride  which  in  Purgatory  made  him 
bend  low  under  its  weight,  we  have  a  fairly  ac- 
curate portrait  of  this  strangely  fascinating  man. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  PROPHET         33 

■who  exercises  such  an  irresistible  attraction  upon 
those  who  come  within  the  circle  of  his  influence. 
Dante  doubtless  felt  that  his  life  had  fallen 
upon  evil  times,  and  that  he  was  fortunate  only 
in  that  he  had  been  born  when  the  sun  was  in 
the  sign  of  the  Twins,  which  stars,  being  impreg- 
nate with  great  virtue,  had  given  him  his  lofty 
genius  ;  but  he  was  in  reality  singularly  fortunate 
in  the  conditions  of  his  life.  Had  he  been  popu- 
lar and  prosperous  his  energies  might  easily  have 
been  dissipated  by  a  multitude  of  distractions. 
Had  he  become  a  fad,  his  light  would  soon  have 
failed.  But  he  was  stripped  for  an  herculean 
task ;  poor,  homeless,  reheved  of  most  of  the 
duties  that  would  have  diverted  him,  he  was 
free  to  turn  all  his  powers  into  one  channel. 
Had  he  been  of  a  slighter  spirit  he  would  have 
been  broken  by  his  burden  and  the  hardness  of 
his  surroundings,  and  have  wasted  his  life  in 
wailing  and  satire,  like  many  a  fierce  genius 
to  whom  the  world  has  been  rous^h.  But  his 
dauntless  soul  turned  vigorously  upon  the  hos- 
tile circmnstances  and  conquered  them.  It  was 
through  suffering  that  he  became  a  perfect  artist. 
His  proud  and  sensitive  nature,  bruised  and 
wounded  as  it  was,  must  perforce  question  life 
to  its  depths.  He  was  driven  into  the  heart  of 
truth  for  his  consolation.  He  was  OTeat  as  an 
artist  because  he  suffered  greatly  as  a  man.  His 
very  destitution  gave  him  his  opportunity.     If 


34  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

Michael  Anorelo  could  have  devoted  all  his  vast 
energies  to  the  rearing  of  one  immense  cathedral, 
conceived  in  every  detail  from  foundation  to 
turret  by  his  own  majestic  mind,  adorned  with 
statues  to  which  his  skilled  hands  had  given  the 
breath  of  life,  all  the  pictures  that  ever  came 
o'lowinor  and  terrible  from  his  brushes  ornament- 
ing  its  walls  and  ceilings,  and  the  whole  crowned 
with  a  dome  as  stately  as  St.  Peter's,  he  would 
have  wrought  in  stone  what  Dante  accomplished 
in  the  "  Divine  Comedy."  But  Michael  Angelo 
had  no  opportunity  to  give  his  Avhole  life  to  one 
grand  achievement ;  he  was  at  the  whim  of  cities 
and  popes,  and  could  only  work  upon  scattered 
fragments.  It  was  Dante's  rare  fortune  that 
for  years  he  could  brood  continuously  over  one 
colossal  theme,  and,  unhindered  by  a  clamoring 
public,  gather  into  one  monumental  whole  all  the 
residts  of  his  splendid  genius  and  energy.  Thus 
his  poem  is  a  solemn  memorial  of  the  mind's 
power  when  the  eye  is  single,  the  purpose  clear, 
and  powers  of  supreme  brilliancy  and  magnitude 
are  concentrated  upon  one  endeavor.  The 
"Divine  Comedy"  is  unique  as  the  complete  ex- 
pression of  superlative  genius,  given  wholly  to 
its  task,  and  glowing  with  a  steadily  increasing 
splendor  until  its  work  is  done. 


V 

HIS    PLACE    m   HISTORY 

Dante  was  exceedingly  fortunate  in  the  epoch 
in  which  he  lived.  His  was  the  rare  opportunity 
of  standing  at  one  of  the  pivotal  points  of  his- 
tory. It  was  given  to  him  to  be  the  morning 
star  that  closed  the  millenniimi  of  darkness 
and  ushered  in  the  new  day.  Ruskin  bears 
this  testimony :  ''  All  great  European  art  is 
rooted  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  it  seems 
to  me  that  there  is  a  kind  of  central  year  about 
which  we  may  consider  the  energy  of  the  Middle 
Ages  to  be  gathered ;  a  kind  of  focus  of  time, 
wdiich,  by  what  is  to  my  mind  a  most  touching 
and  impressive  Divine  appointment,  has  been 
marked  for  us  by  the  greatest  writer  of  the 
Middle  Ages  in  the  first  words  he  utters,  namely, 
the  year  1300,  the  'mezzo  del  cammhi'  of 
the  hfe  of  Dante."  ^  In  a  similar  strain  is 
the  judgment  expressed  by  Frederick  Maurice : 
"  His  poem,  coeval  as  it  is  with  the  great  judg- 
Aient  of  the  papacy  under  Boniface,  with  the 
practical  termination  of  the  religious  wars,  and 
with  the  rise  of  a  native  literature,  not  only  in  the 

1  Stones  of  Venice^  ii.  312. 


36  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

south,  but  in  the  north,  is  a  better  epoch  from 
which  to  commence  the  new  age  of  European 
thought  than  the  German  reformation  of  the 
sixteenth  century."  ^  And  so  this  sacl-eyed 
prophet,  who  compared  himself  to  a  bark  with- 
out a  rudder,  driven  about  by  hostile  winds  upon 
a  stormy  sea,  was  in  reality  the  mountain  peak 
separating  the  old  from  the  new,  with  sides  slop- 
ing toward  the  past  and  the  future. 

With  the  fall  of  the  empire  of  Charlemagne, 
Europe  was  given  over  to  two  centuries  of  dis- 
integration and  chaos.  After  the  year  1000 
had  passed,  and  the  world,  contrary  to  a  general 
expectation,  had  not  come  to  an  end,  the  hopes 
of  men  revived,  and  they  set  about  making  this 
earth  a  fit  place  to  dwell  in.  The  fresh  inflow 
of  life  expressed  itself  in  many  forms.  The 
crusades  opened  up  a  new  world  of  thought,  and 
afforded  a  vent  for  military  enthusiasm ;  Hilde- 
brand,  with  splendid  heroism  and  extraordinary 
ability,  sought  to  bring  purity  out  of  the  general 
corruption,  and  restore  order  by  bringing  a  dis- 
rupted society  under  the  supreme  control  of  the 
Church ;  monasteries  became  more  than  ever  the 
seats  of  devotion  and  learning ;  the  monks  re- 
deemed the  wilderness  and  restored  agriculture 
over  a  great  part  of  Europe ;  the  universities 
started  into  life  ;  and  those  vast  cathedrals,  which 
have  been  the  admiration  of  subsequent  times, 
^  Mediaeval  Philosophy ^  p.  253. 


HIS  PLACE  IN  HISTORY  37 

began  to  rise  ;  St.  Francis  enkindled  a  new  en- 
thusiasm of  humanity ;  the  Dominicans  estab- 
Kshed  the  dogmas  of  the  Church  in  the  universi- 
ties and  in  the  minds  of  the  people ;  Thomas 
Aquinas,  than  whom  Europe  has  never  produced 
a  more  profound,  subtle,  and  lucid  mind,  essayed 
the  gigantic  task  of  combining  the  religious 
thought  of  those  analytical  and  audacious  cen- 
turies into  a  perfect  system,  and  accomplished  it. 
The  end  of  the  twelfth  and  the  beg-inninof  of 
the  thirteenth  century  was  the  flood-tide  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  There  was  what  had  never  been 
before  and  has  never  been  since,  a  European 
consciousness  ;  there  was  one  Church  everywhere 
present,  one  language  spoken  by  all  educated 
people,  one  faith  and  philosophy  of  life  univer- 
sally accepted.  But  by  the  end  of  the  thirteenth 
century  the  tide  was  rapidly  ebbing.  Dante  was 
born  in  1265.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Bona- 
ventura  died  in  1274,  Albertus  Magnus  passed 
away  in  1280,  and  Duns  Scotus  in  1308.  With 
their  going  scholasticism  became  a  spent  force, 
for  they  left  no  successors  of  equal  power.  The 
same  century  saw  the  utter  defeat  of  the  house 
of  Hohenstaufen,  and  the  close  of  that  obstinate 
conflict  between  Church  and  Empire,  which  had 
engrossed  the  thoughts  of  Europe  for  five  cen- 
turies. The  year  1300,  when  Dante  saw  his 
immortal  vision,  was  the  one  appointed  by  the 
Pope  to  celebrate  the  victory  of  the  Church. 


38  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

Of  this  world  of  chivalrous  love,  clear 
thought,  astute  speculation,  ardent  piety,  and 
tumultuous,  fierce,  barbaric  energy,  Dante  is  the 
complete  representative.  With  a  genius  so 
universal  that  he  seemed  to  touch  and  penetrate 
every  part  of  its  seething  and  deep-flowing  life, 
he  compressed  all  into  his  strange  "  mediaeval 
miracle  of  song."  In  his  lifelong  devotion  to 
Beatrice  we  see  the  incarnation  of  that  romantic 
conception  of  love  which  was  the  knightly  ideal 
of  the  Middle  Ages ;  in  the  Inferno  we  have  a 
graphic  and  powerful  delineation  of  their  fears  ; 
in  the  Purgatorio  there  is  a  lucid  exposition  of 
their  scheme  of  salvation  ;  in  the  Paradiso  their 
crude  system  of  astronomy  is  made  the  stairway 
up  which  their  glowing  faith  mounted  to  the 
throne  of  God.  The  theology  of  Thomas 
Aquinas  and  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle  are  the 
structural  principles  of  the  poem ;  while  the 
unearthly  spirituality  which  breathes  in  the  art 
and  poetry  of  the  time  and  culminates  in  the 
ecstatic  visions  of  the  mystics  here  find  noblest 
expression.  Here  also  we  see  portrayed  with 
unequaled  beauty  that  ideal  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire,  as  familiar  to  those  times  as  it  is  alien 
to  our  own.  The  craving  of  that  period  was 
for  unity.  Charlemagne  had  sought  it  in  the 
State,  Hildebrand  would  organize  it  through  a 
sovereign  Church,  Aquinas  had  brought  thought 
into  one  harmonious  system,  Dante  conceived  it 


HIS  PLACE  IN  HISTORY  39 

to  be  found  in  a  regenerated  society,  ruled  by 
Pope  and  Emperor.  The  prayer  that  came  up 
from  every  earnest  heart  in  those  turbulent  and 
warring  times  was  for  peace  and  unity.  To 
answer  that  ceaseless  aspiration  Dante  felt  to  be 
a  great  part  of  his  holy  mission. 

But  while  the  seer  is  thoroughly  mediaeval  in 
theology  and  philosophy,  in  chivalrous  and  ro- 
mantic love,  in  his  conception  of  a  world-wide 
empire,  and  in  his  quenchless  yearning  for  unity, 
he  is  unconsciously  the  warder  of  the  gates  lead- 
in  o^  into  a  far  different  future.  In  the  fine 
words  of  Shelley  he  "  was  the  first  awakener  of 
entranced  Europe,  the  congregator  of  those  great 
spirits  who  presided  over  the  resurrection  of 
learning,  the  Lucifer  of  that  starry  flock  that  in 
the  thirteenth  century  shone  forth  from  Repub- 
lican Italy."  Standing  completely  in  the  circle 
of  mediaeval  conceptions  he  was  the  tallest  moun- 
tain peak,  and  thus  first  caught  the  light  of  the 
coming  day.  The  deep  spirit  of  the  centuries 
preceding  him  had  sought  truth  supremely,  and 
had  delighted  to  express  it  in  symbolism ;  the 
period  immediately  following  rejoiced  more  in 
form  and  symmetry  :  before  him  was  the  age  of 
faith,  after  him  came  the  age  of  taste.  Beauty, 
that  heretofore  had  been  feared  as  sensuous  and 
evil,  now  became  of  commanding  importance,  and 
aesthetic  perfection  and  proportion  in  the  last 
detail  were  carefully  studied.     While  Dante  com- 


40  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

pletely  mirrored  the  old  spirit  he  became  a  model 
for  the  new,  enshrining  truth  in  beauty,  and  com- 
bininof  faith  with  taste. 

The  "  Divine  Comedy  "  also  ushers  a  new  force 
into  literature.  It  brouo^ht  thouc^ht  out  of  the 
stilted  and  unnatural  Latin  tongue,  and  com- 
mitted it  to  the  living  and  flexible  language  of 
the  common  people.  It  was  the  first  work  of  a 
great  literature,  the  creator  of  a  national  tongue, 
and  the  boundary  between  ancient  and  modern 
speech.  From  the  days  of  Rome's  magnificence 
the  Latin  had  been  the  vehicle  of  all  worthy 
prose  and  verse.  It  was  the  language  of  edu- 
cated minds  everywhere,  and  in  its  stately  forms 
were  written  all  the  masterpieces  which  Dante 
revered.  He  himself  yielded  it  the  first  place 
for  nobleness,  power,  and  beauty.  It  required  a 
darinof  soul  to  break  all  traditions  and  intrust 
the  labor  of  a  lifetime  to  the  shifty  bark  of  the 
Italian  vernacular.  None  knew  better  than  he, 
who  made  the  first  critical  study  of  languages 
in  modern  times,  how  limited  in  range  it  yet  w^as, 
and  how  liable  to  fluctuation  and  corruption  ;  but 
by  the  magic  of  his  regal  genius  he  extended 
the  common  speech  to  contain  his  thought, 
moulded  it  into  dignity  and  strength,  and  first 
revealed  its  marvelous  charm  and  capacity,  so 
that  after  six  centuries  his  native  tongue  is  con- 
temporaneous with  the  Italian  of  our  own  day. 
It  is  no  ordinary  mind  that  dares  to  be  a  Colum- 


HIS  PLACE  IN  HISTORY  41 

bus  on  an  untried  sea,  or  a  Prometheus  bringing 
fire  from  the  stars  for  the  common  use  of  men. 
He  fulfilled  the  prediction  which  Byron  made 
him  utter  five  centuries  after :  — 

"  My  bones  shall  rest  within  thy  breast, 
My  soul  within  thy  language."  ^ 

Dante  was  also  distinctively  modern  in  his 
theme.  His  many  predecessors,  who  had  written 
of  the  adventures  of  the  soul  in  the  eternal 
world,  made  the  form  of  his  poem  belong  to 
the  mediaeval  times  ;  but  his  thought  is  essen- 
tially modern.  The  journey  he  described  really 
takes  place  in  one's  own  soul.  Hell  is  the  dark 
cavern  within  us,  Paradise  the  heavenly  disposi- 
tion of  the  mind,  Purgatory  the  way  of  salvation. 
He  portrayed  God's  way  of  dealing  with  a 
human  life.  The  vision  turned  within,  behold- 
ing the  fears  and  hopes,  the  faith  and  failure,  the 
defeats  and  possibilities  of  the  soul  as  it  faces 
the  mysteries  of  God  and  works  out  its  destiny, 
is  characteristic  of  our  own  day.  In  thus  sing- 
ing of  the  conditions  of  the  soul,  rather  than  of 
arms  and  adventure,  Dante  gave  voice  to  the 
new  epoch  and  became  the  leader  of  a  noble 
company  of  poets. 

He  would  be  considered  rash  indeed  who 
claimed  this  grim  prophet  as  in  any  way  an  ex- 
ponent of  the  newer  religious  thinking,  which 
has  broken  with  the  stern  and  mechanical  dog- 

1  The  Prophecy  of  Dante,  canto  ii. 


42  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

mas  of  the  old  theology.  Yet  it  is  exceedingly 
interesting  to  note  how  nearly  every  truth  which 
has  been  prominently  asserted  in  our  times  by  the 
leaders  of  thought  has  found  expression  in  Dante. 
He  emphasized  as  strongly  as  did  Channing  or 
Phillips  Brooks  the  essential  divineness  of  man. 

"  And  it  is  nature  which,  from  height  to  height, 
On  to  the  summit  prompts  us."  ^ 

Evil  choices  are  not  the  result  of  total  depravity ; 
it  is  through  lack  of  knowledge  that  evil  appears 
the  good.  He  taught  the  coordmating  and  co- 
operating power  of  spirituality  and  reason,  a 
truth  which  we  are  reviving  to  end  the  chronic 
warfare  between  science  and  religion.  No  mod- 
ern evangelical  preacher  lays  more  weighty  stress 
on  the  sovereign  freedom  of  the  will.  He  dif- 
fers widely  from  those  Puritan  rationalists  who 
constructed  theology  almost  wholly  out  of  the 
analytical  faculty  and  distrusted  spiritual  vision. 
He  anticipates  the  faith  of  Horace  Bushnell  in 
the  trustworthiness  of  the  intuitions ;  it  is  after 
theology  personified  in  Beatrice  has  done  its  best 
that  by  direct  vision  he  sees  the  ultimate  myste- 
ries. The  immanence  of  God  is  the  fundamental 
doctrine  of  the  best  religious  thought  of  our  day. 
It  is  a  truth  which  is  commonly  supposed  to  have 
been  lost  during  the  period  of  Romanized  thought, 
which  prevailed  from  Augustine  down  to  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.    Undoubtedly 

1  Par.  iv.  127,  128.     (Gary's  trans.) 


HIS  PLACE  IN  HISTORY  43 

Dante  did  not  give  it  the  prominence  we  accord 
it,  but  he  recognized  it,  and  clearly  stated  it  in 
the  first  line  of  the  "  Paradiso."  "  The  glory  of 
Him  who  moves  everything  penetrates  through 
the  universe ; "  and  elsewhere  "  it  irradiates 
everything,"  and  "  naught  can  be  an  obstacle  to 
it ;  "  and  in  the  beatific  vision,  when  he  beheld 
reality,  he  saw  God  in  all  things  and  all  things 
in  God. 

The  services  of  this  mediaeval  seer  to  modern 
times  cannot  well  be  estimated.  Besides  beino* 
the  never-failing  fire  in  which  lofty  minds  of  sub- 
sequent generations  have  kindled  their  torches, 
he  took  the  initiative  in  popularizing  literature, 
and  gave  form  to  a  most  noble  language ;  he 
elevated  to  an  almost  unattainable  lieioht  the 
standard  of  hterary  form  and  beauty  ;  he  has 
indelibly  impressed  upon  the  world's  thought 
the  worth  of  the  individual  man,  lifting  the  most 
insignificant  to  inconceivable  greatness  in  the 
decision  of  eternal  issues  amidst  the  contention 
of  supernal  forces  ;  he  has  helped  to  terminate 
the  debate  between  Church  and  State  by  point- 
ing out  that  the  happiness  and  unity  of  mankind 
come  not  through  the  supremacy  of  either,  but 
through  a  regenerated  society  where  the  people 
are  served  by  both.  Greater  than  all  else,  his 
most  memorable  service  has  been  that  over  those 
hot,  stormy,  creative  centuries  —  centuries  which, 
with  all  their  crudeness  and  barbarism,  followed 


44  THE  TEACHINGS  OF   DANTE 

the  highest  spiritual  ideals  with  a  passionate  en- 
thusiasm which  has  never  been  equaled,  and,  with 
vision  clearer  than  our  own,  realized  the  presence 
of  the  eternal  —  he  pondered  until  he  caught 
their  spirit,  incarnated  it  in  a  form  of  deathless 
beauty,  and  left  it  as  a  perpetual  standard  to 
reveal  the  greatness  and  the  littleness  of  subse- 
quent ages. 


THE  BURDEN  OF  THE  MESSAGE 


"  An  odd  poem,  but  gleaming  with  natural  beauties,  a  work 
in  which  the  author  rose  in  parts  above  the  bad  taste  of  his  age 
and  his  subject,  and  full  of  passages  written  as  purely  as  if  they 
had  been  of  the  time  of  Ariosto  and  Tasso."  —  Voltaire. 

"  The  *  Divina  Commedia'  is  one  of  the  landmarks  of  liistory. 
More  than  a  magnificent  poem,  more  than  the  beginning  of  a 
language  and  the  opening  of  a  national  literature,  more  than  the 
inspirer  of  art  and  the  glory  of  a  great  people,  it  is  one  of  those 
rare  and  solemn  monuments  of  the  mind's  power  which  measure 
and  test  what  it  can  reach  to,  which  rise  up  ineffaceably  and  for- 
ever as  time  goes  on,  marking  out  its  advance  by  grander  divi- 
sions than  its  centuries,  and  adopted  as  epochs  by  the  conseut  of 
all  who  come  after.  It  stands  with  the  '  Iliad '  and  Shakespeare's 
plays,  with  the  writings  of  Aristotle  and  Plato,  with  the  'Novum 
Organon  '  and  the  '  Prineipia,'  with  Justinian's  '  Code,'  with  the 
Parthenon  and  St.  Peter's.  It  is  the  first  Christian  poem  ;  and 
it  opens  European  literature,  as  the  *  Iliad'  did  that  of  Greece 
and  Rome  ;  and,  like  the  *  Iliad,'  it  has  never  become  out  of 
date  ;  it  accompanies  in  undiminished  freshness  the  literature 
which  it  began."  —  Dean  Church. 


THE     CALL     OF    THE     PROPHET 

The  great  Florentine  was  profoundly  con- 
vinced that  he  was  a  prophet  sent  from  God 
with  an  imperative  communication  for  the  world. 
The  very  stars  had  foretold  it.  When  he  first  felt 
the  Tuscan  air  the  sun  was  in  the  sign  of  the 
Twins,  in  the  heaven  of  the  Fixed  Stars,  presided 
over  by  the  cherubim,  who  look  into  the  face  of 
the  Most  High  and  spread  a  knowledge  of  Him 
to  all  beneath.  To  the  prenatal  influence  of 
these  stars,  "  impregnate  with  great  virtues," 
Dante  ascribed  his  rare  intellectual  insight  and 
his  extraordinary  powers  of  expression.  They 
gave  him  his  ability  to  penetrate  the  Divine  mys- 
teries and  his  commission  to  cooperate  with  the 
cherubim  in  diffusing  the  truth.  He  spoke  in  the 
vulo^ar  tonofue  that  his  word  mio^ht  come  to  all. 
Even  Isaiah,  after  his  exalted  vision  in  the  tem- 
ple, had  not  a  more  urgent  sense  of  mission  than 
had  this  rus^ored  soul  as  he  wandered  about  the 
world  experiencing  and  working  out  his  "  mystic, 
unfathomable  song."  He  too  had  had  a  vision. 
In  closing  the  "  Vita  Nuova  "  he  says :  "  It  was 


48  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

given  unto  me  to  behold  a  very  wonderful  vision  ; 
wherein  I  saw  things  that  determined  me  that 
I  would  say  nothing  further  of  this  blessed  one 
until  such  a  time  as  I  could  discourse  more  wor- 
thily of  her.  And  to  this  end  I  labor  all  I  can, 
as  she  well  knoweth."  From  our  knowledge  of 
Dante  we  may  well  believe  that  this  was  more 
than  a  beholding  of  the  ascended  Beatrice,  whom 
he  had  loved  in  the  flesh.  It  was  a  vision  of  that 
which  she  symbolized  to  his  mind,  namely,  the 
Divine  Wisdom  and  its  dealings  with  the  children 
of  men.  He  too  would  justify  the  ways  of  God 
to  men ;  and  his  whole  after  life  was  a  training, 

"  So  that  the  shadow  of  the  blessed  realm 
Stamped  in  my  brain  I  can  make  manifest."  ^ 

Down  through  the  world  of  endless  bitterness, 
and  over  the  mountain  from  whose  fair  summit 
the  eyes  of  his  Lady  had  lifted  him,  and  after- 
ward through  the  heavens  from  light  to  light, 
he  had  learned  his  message.  Not  for  a  moment 
does  he  forget  that  this  high  privilege  is  given  to 
him  that  he  may  throw  the  blaze  of  things  eternal 
upon  this  life.  Beatrice,  St.  Peter,  Cacciaguida 
repeatedly  charge  him  to  make  known  the  whole 
vision.  When  he  reaches  the  very  heaven  of 
heavens  he  does  not  permit  himself  the  swoon 
of  infinite  delight,  which  has  been  the  aspiration 
of  mystics ;  but  seeks  yet  more  eagerly  for  truth, 
that  he  may  turn  the  glory  of  the  supernal  splen- 
dor upon  the  reeking  corruption  of   the  papal 

1  Par.  i.  23,  24. 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  PROPHET  49 

court ;  and  his  final  prayer,  as  he  joins  his  look 
unto  the  Infinite  Goodness,  is  that  he  may  not 
fail  of  his  lofty  mission  :  — 

^^  0  Supreme  Light,  that  so  high  uplifted  Thy- 
self from  mortal  conceptions,  re-lend  a  little  to  my 
mind  of  what  Thou  didst  appear,  and  make  my 
tongue  so  powerful  that  it  may  be  able  to  leave 
one  single  spark  of  Thy  glory  for  the  future 
people;  for,  by  returning  somewhat  to  my 
memory  and  by  sounding  a  little  in  these  verses, 
more  of  Thy  victory  shall  be  conceived."  ^ 

Dante  was  one  of  the  three  preeminent  poets 
of  the  world,  because  first  of  all  he  was  a  seer. 

"  He  saw  through  life  and  death,  through  good  and  ill, 

He  saw  through  his  own  soul. 
The  marvel  of  the  everlasting  will, 

An  open  scroll 
Before  him  lay."  - 

"  The  more  I  think  of  it,"  says  Ruskin,  "  I 
find  this  conclusion  more  impressed  upon  me,  — 
that  the  greatest  things  a  human  soul  ever  does  is 
to  see  something,  and  tell  what  it  saw  in  a  plain 
way.  Hundreds  of  people  can  talk  for  one  who 
can  think ;  but  thousands  can  think  for  one  who 
can  see.  To  see  clearly  is  poetry,  prophecy,  and 
religion,  —  all  in  one."  No  eye  ever  saw  more 
clearly  the  heart  of  man  and  the  grandeur  of  the 
moral  law  than  did  this  world-worn  prophet. 
What  he  saw  so  vividly  he  could  state  vitally. 
He  was  a  poet,  because  the  heart  of  all  truth  has 
rhythm  and  poetry  in  it. 

1  Par.  xxxiii.  67-75.  2  Tennyson,  The  Poet. 


n 

THE    MESSAGE 

What  was  the  message  this  poet-prophet 
soufifht  to  deliver  to  the  world  ?  Let  us  use  his 
own  words  in  his  letter  dedicating  the  "  Paradiso  " 
to  his  friend  and  protector,  Can  Grande :  "  The 
aim  of  the  whole  and  the  individual  parts  is  two- 
fold, a  nearer  and  a  farther,  but  if  we  seek  into 
the  matter  closely  we  may  say  briefly  that  the 
aim  of  the  whole  and  the  individual  parts  is  to 
bring:  those  who  are  Hvinof  in  this  life  out  of  a 
state  of  misery  and  to  guide  them  to  a  state  of 
happiness."  How  the  soul  of  man,  lost  in  the 
mazes  of  life  and  defeated  by  the  fierceness  of 
its  own  passions,  can  learn  its  peril,  escape  from 
the  stain  and  power  of  sin,  and  enter  into  perfect 
blessedness,  —  this  is  his  theme.  He  sets  it  forth 
in  three  works  which  are  distinctively  religious, 
the  "New  Life,"  the  "Banquet,"  and  the 
"  Divine  Comedy."  The  last  is  the  completest 
and  fullest  statement  of  what  is  vital  in  the  first 
two. 


in 

ITS    POLITICAL   ASPECT 

Although  the  main  current  is  religious  there 
flows  through  the  "  Comedy  "  another  stream  of 
thought  which  is  poHtical.  The  author  has  an 
ideal  civil  polity  to  advocate,  as  well  as  an  ideal 
righteousness  to  impress.  Like  the  stern  Hebrew 
prophet,  whom  he  so  much  resembled,  this  Tuscan 
seer  was  an  ardent  patriot.  He  never  divorced 
his  religion  from  his  politics,  but  brought  both 
under  the  same  august  moral  order.  He  loved 
Florence  and  his  native  Italy  with  a  love  that 
was  notable,  even  in  those  days  of  intense  feel- 
inof.  And  because  he  loved  them  he  felt  the 
steady  pressure  of  a  great  duty  to  rebuke  their 
sins  and  point  out  the  way  of  political  stabiHty 
and  peace. 

The  fierce  debate  between  Church  and  State 
during  the  Middle  Ages  was  in  large  part  over 
the  right  of  investiture.  The  Emperor  claimed 
it  as  essential  to  all  orderly  civil  government, 
while  the  great  Hildebrand  and  his  successors 
asserted  that  it  must  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Pope 
to  preserve  the  purity  and  unity  of  the  Church. 


62  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

In  the  incessant  and  bitter  clash  o£  these  two 
colossal  powers  Italy  was  at  once  the  stake  and 
the  battle  o^round.  She  became  a  land  of  walled 
cities,  local  pride  and  jealousy  grew  intense  and 
masterful,  partisan  feeling  ran  high,  and  fac- 
tional lines  were  strict  and  pronounced.  By  sid- 
ing now  with  one  party  and  now  with  the  other, 
the  cities  obtained  their  liberties.  Domestic  in- 
dustry and  foreign  commerce  made  them  rich ; 
the  conflict  between  the  mitre  and  the  crown 
made  them  free.  In  the  joy  of  freedom  life 
within  the  walls  grew  robust,  self-reliant,  fertile 
of  vast  enterprises.  Like  overgrown  boys  just 
released  from  leading-strings  they  were  vigorous, 
boastful,  insolent,  fickle,  lavish  in  expenditure, 
quick  to  draw  the  sword,  and  overflowing  with 
a  lusty  exuberance  of  vitality.  The  cities  were  u 
unwelcome  anomalies  in  mediaeval  Europe.  So- 
ciety had  been  clerical  and  aristocratic ;  with  the 
rise  of  the  municipalities  a  new  class  came  into 
prominence.  The  citizen  order,  upon  which  our 
modern  civilization  is  based,  now  for  the  first 
time  became  a  force ;  it  could  maintain  itself, 
however,  only  by  constant  fighting,  and  ceaseless 
strife  bred  a  temper  that  was  a  source  of  per- 
petual internecine  feud.  The  implacable  and 
rancorous  party  spirit  engendered  by  the  long 
wars  of  investiture  was  an  unmitio^ated  curse  to  ^ 
Italy,  and  a  great  price  to  pay  for  freedom.  We 
search  in  vain  to  find  any  consistent  principle 


ITS  POLITICAL  ASPECT  53 

dividino^  the  contendino^  factions.  The  terms 
Guelf  and  GhibelHne,  that  in  a  rough  way  distin- 
guished the  partisans  of  the  Church  and  the  par- 
tisans of  the  Empire,  came  to  be  symbols  of  deep- 
seated  jealousies,  and  altered  their  meaning  with 
time  and  place.  The  real  cause  of  the  fright- 
ful internal  strife  was  the  struggle  of  the  con- 
tendino^  forces  of  the  old  social  order  based  on 
the  force  of  the  few,  and  the  new  based  on  the 
strength  of  the  many.  The  growing  towns  were 
communities  with  an  intense  spmt  of  rivalry, 
and,  therefore,  they  fought  for  existence,  for 
command  of  harbors,  for  keys  to  the  mountain 
passes,  for  leadership  in  commerce.  Moreover, 
the  same  unbridled  passions  that  swept  Italy 
with  a  steady  storm  of  battle  divided  the  cities 
themselves  into  turbulent  factions,  filling  the 
streets  with  constant  brawls,  carousals,  family 
feuds,  and  justifying  Napier's  characterization  of 
their  life  a^^  one  universal  burst  of  unmitigated 
anarchy." JY 

The  deep,  persistent  prayer  of  Dante,  as  of 
every  lofty  soul,  was  for  peace.  But  where  was 
peace  to  be  found?  The  law-making  and  law- 
abiding  power  was  not  to  be  sought  in  the  fickle 
people,  and  therefore  the  poet  turned  to  that 
brilliant  illusion  whose  glory  so  enslaved  the  im- 
agination of  the  Middle  Ages  —  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire.  The  most  significant  pohtical  pheno- 
menon of  the  three  preceding  centuries  had  been 


54  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

the  formation  of  the  nationalities  of  Europe. 
Their  growth  and  expanding  power  was  a  sonrce 
of  perpetual  war,  and  the  idealists  of  those  rest- 
less and  batthng  centuries  longed  for  some 
supreme  power,  which  should  express  the  political 
unity  of  Christendom,  be  the  ultimate  tribunal 
of  appeal,  the  fountain  of  law,  and  the  admin- 
istrator of  impartial  justice.  Hildebrand  had 
attempted  to  realize  this  splendid  ideal  in  the 
universal  Church,  whose  head  should  be  the  ar- 
biter of  the  nations,  the  source  of  authority  and 
order.  To  establish  this  conception,  which  in 
unapproached  grandeur  makes  the  dreams  of  ^ 
empire  of  Charlemagne  and  Napoleon  seem  paltry, 
he  had  given  all  his  vast  ability  and  the  superb 
energy  of  his  stormy  life.  It  was  a  noble  theory 
worthy  of  his  statesmanlike  mind ;  but  in  practice 
it  had  failed,  because  the  seven  mortal  sins  w^ere 
as  strong  in  the  hearts  of  popes  and  cardinals  as 
in  those  of  kings.  When  the  corruption  of  the  yL 
Roman  court  filled  Europe  with  its  stench,  the 
thoughts  of  many  minds  turned  to  the  earher 
conception  of  the  Empire  as  it  had  existed  before 
the  sword  was  joined  to  the  crozier.  This  dream 
of  the  Middle  Ages  finds  its  loftiest  expression  fif^ 
in  Dante's  treatise  on  the  "  Monarchy."  He  main-  /^ 
tains  that  universal  peace  is  essential  to  freedom. 
Peace  can  be  attained  only  under  a  monarchy 
whose  head  seeks  the  good  of  all  alike.  As  man 
has  a  corruptible  and  an  incorruptible  nature,  he 


ITS  POLITICAL  ASPECT  55 

therefore  has  two  ends,  active  virtue  on  earth 
and  the  enjoyment  of  the  sight  of  God  hereafter. 
Temporal  happiness  is  gained  by  the  practice  of 
the  four  cardinal  virtues,  and  spiritual  blessed- 
ness throuo-h  the  theolos^ical  virtues.  Two 
guides  are  needed,  the  emperor  and  the  pontiff, 
the  one  supreme  in  temporal  things,  the  other  in 
spiritual,  both  equally  ordained  of  God,  and  co- 
operating for  the  common  good  of  man.  Dante 
believed  that  the  chief  source  of  the  corruption 
of  the  Church  was  its  assumption  of  political 
power,  and  with  sentences  that  flashed  fire  he 
souofht  to  restore  tlie  ancient  order. 

This  political  ideal,  mingling  with  his  ideal 
righteousness,  dominated  his  whole  life.  He 
named  one  of  his  daughters  Beatrice,  and  Dean 
Plumptre^  states  on  the  authority  of  Passerini 
that  he  named  another  Imperia.^^n  the  "  Vita 
Nuova  "  we  see  the  be^'innino^  of  the  stream  of  the 
poet's  religious  life  ;  in  "  De  Monarchia  "  the  flow 
of  his  political  aspirations.  The  two  currents  unite 
in  the  "  Divina  Commedia."  The  one  is  typified 
in  Virgil,  the  other  in  Beatrice.  One  leads  to 
peace  on  earth,  the  other  to  felicity  in  heaven. 
The  political  ideal  blends  with  the  religious  in 
the  opening  canto  of  the  "  Inferno,"  where 
Virgil's  voice  is  hoarse  through  long  silence, 
because,  being  the  poet  of  the  ancient  Roman 
Empire,  his  message  has  so  long  been  unheard. 

^  Studies,  p.  361. 


56  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

The  wanderer  cannot  climb  the  shining  moun- 
tain, which  represents  an  ideal  policy  as  well  as 
an  ideal  blessedness,  on  account  of  the  inconti- 
nence of  Florence,  the  pride  of  France,  and  the 
wolfish  avarice  of  the  Papacy ;  but  a  hound 
shall  at  last  come  who  will  drive  the  wolf  into 
Hell.  Dante  predicts  this  hound  in  the  same 
prophetic  spirit  that  possessed  Isaiah  when  he 
foretold  the  Messiah.  Later,  in  "  Purgatory,"  he 
speaks  of  the  expected  one  as  the  Dux,  who  shall 
slay  the  thievish  harlot  of  the  seven  hills,  and 
Beatrice  strictly  charges  him  to  report  what  has 
been  revealed  to  him.  In  the  "  Inferno  "  he  dis- 
covers Brutus  and  Cassius,  traitors  against  the 
Empire,  as  well  as  Judas,  the  traitor  against  the 
Church,  in  the  bloody  maw  of  Lucifer ;  and  in 
"  Paradise,"  as  all  heaven  turns  red  with  just  in- 
dignation, St.  Peter  pronounces  judgment  upon 
the  rapacious  wolves  who  wear  the  garb  of  a 
shepherd,  enjoining  the  poet  to  conceal  nothing  ; 
and  even  the  last  words  of  Beatrice  are  a  con- 
demnation of  Pope  Clement  V.  to  the  eternal  pit, 
for  his  treachery  to  Henry. 

^Dante's  ideal  polity  was  utterly  impracticable  ; 
but  his  essential  aspiration  is  that  of  many  minds 
to-day,  and  we  are  beginning  to  see  its  realiza- 
tion. The  code  of  international  law  is  a  source 
of  universal  order ;  the  recent  Peace  Congress  at 
the  Hague,  in  establishing  an  international  tribu- 
nal, took  a  long  step  toward  extending  the  area 


ITS  POLITICAL  ASPECT  57 

of  peace  for  which  Dante's  soul  longed ;  in 
America  the  Church  is  separated  from  the  State, 
a  precedent  which  is  exerting  a  wide  influence 
in  Europe.  _7 


IV 

ITS    RELIGIOUS   TEACHING 

Important  as  this  ardent  patriot  thought  his 
political  message  to  be,  it  is  of  value  to  us  largely 
as  a  study  of  mediseval  conceptions.  The  per- 
petual interest  of  the  poem  lies  in  the  charm  and 
power  of  its  religious  teachings.  Following  his 
great  master,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  Dante  believed 
that  the  final  end  of  all  right  endeavor  is  happi- 
ness. There  is  a  twofold  happiness  for  man  be- 
cause he  is  a  dual  creature.  He  has  a  corrupti- 
ble and  an  incorruptible  nature.  As  a  citizen  of 
this  world  he  attains  happiness  by  obeying  reason 
and  practicing  the  four  cardinal  virtues,  pru- 
dence, justice,  temperance,  and  fortitude.  This 
gives  to  the  natural  man  perfect  temporal  felicity. 
For  the  spiritual  nature  the  supreme  beatitude 
is  the  Vision  of  God.  This  lies  beyond  the  capa- 
city of  the  natural  reason  ;  therefore  Revelation, 
whose  channels  are  the  Scriptures,  the  teachings 
of  the  Fathers,  and  the  decisions  of  Councils, 
makes  known  the  mysteries  of  God.  By  prac- 
ticing the  theological  virtues,  faith,  hope,  love, 
man  becomes  a  partaker  of  the  divine  nature  and 


ITS  RELIGIOUS   TEACHING  59 

enters  into  eternal  blessedness,  —  partially  in  this 
world ;  perfectly,  according  to  his  capacity,  in  the 
celestial  Paradise. 

But  men  miss  the  true  way.  They  desire  hap- 
piness. Love  for  the  objects  which  seem  good  is 
implanted  in  the  soul,  even  as  zeal  in  the  bee  for 
making  honey,  yet  man  tastes  the  inferior  good 
and  is  led  on  toward  evil ;  — 

"  Of  trivial  good  at  first  it  [the  soul]  tastes  the  savour  ; 
Is  cheated  by  it,  and  runs  after  it, 
If  guide  or  rein  turn  not  aside  its  love."  ^ 

This  passion  for  the  lower  pleasures  is  no  excuse, 
for  men  should  bring  their  desires  to  the  reason, 
which  winnows  the  good  from  the  evil,  and  then 
by  the  power  of  the  will  they  can  restrain  the 
baser  loves.  They  permit  the  reason  and  the 
will  to  slumber,  and  thus  lose  the  way  of  happi- 
ness and  wander  into  paths  of  misery.  A  fearful 
vision,  even  of  Hell  and  the  awful  consequences 
of  sin,  is  needed  to  keep  back  their  feet  from 
evil.  The  method  of  relief  from  the  thrall  of 
iniquity  and  the  entrance  into  moral  and  spiritual 
joy  Dante  graphically  describes  in  the  story  of 
his  own  soul's  experience.  Midway  in  the  jour- 
ney of  life  he  found  himself  lost  in  a  dark  wood ; 
coming  to  the  foot  of  a  high  hill  he  looked  up- 
ward and  saw  its  shoulders  clothed  with  lig-ht. 
Then  was  his  fear  quieted  and  he  strove  to  ascend 
the  desert  slope.     Almost  at  the  beginning  of  the 

1  Purg.  xvi.  91,  93. 


CO  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

steep  three  beasts  attacked  him,  a  she-leopard^ 
a  hon,  and  a  she-wolf.  As  he  was  falling  back 
before  them  there  appeared  to  him  Virgil,  who 
conducted  him  through  the  deeps  of  Hell,  and 
up  the  steeps  of  the  mount  of  Purgatory,  leaving 
him  in  the  Terrestrial  Paradise.  Here  he  met 
Beatrice,  who  led  him  through  the  ascending 
heavens  until  he  looked  into  the  Fountain  of 
Eternal  Light. 

Thus  Dante  would  teach  us  that  men  often 
unconsciously  go  astray  and  awake  to  find  them- 
selves lost  in  the  tangled  labyrinth  of  the  world. 
Coming  to  themselves  they  resolve  to  escape  and 
achieve  some  worthy  end.  Trusting  in  their 
own  resources,  they  confidently  seek  to  realize 
some  resplendent  ideal ;  but  the  task  is  hopeless. 
The  leopard  of  incontinence,  the  lion  of  violence, 
the  wolf  of  avarice,  cannot  be  overcome.  They 
drive  the  despairing  spirit  back  "  where  the  sun 
is  silent."  Man's  extremity  is  God's  opportu- 
nity. Divine  Grace  quickens  their  reason  to  lead 
them  in  a  better  way.  It  shows  them  the  nature 
of  sin  and  its  terrible  effects.  It  next  guides  up 
the  steep  path  of  purification  and  freedom  until 
their  souls  are  brought  back  to  the  stainlessness 
enjoyed  by  the  first  pair  in  Eden.  Reason  and 
the  practice  of  the  moral  virtues  can  do  no  more. 
Spiritual  life  in  this  world  and  the  world  to  come 
is  the  gift  of  God,  made  known  through  Revela- 
tion.    Therefore,  Beatrice,  the  Divine  Wisdom, 


ITS  RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  61 

ushers  the  redeemed  spirits  into  the  celestial  mys- 
teries, lifting  them  from  glory  to  glory  until  they 
touch  the  height  of  bliss  in  a  rapturous  vision  of 
God. 


THE    VALUE    OF    HIS   THOUGHT 

Is  Dante  a  safe  guide  ?  Has  he  pointed  out 
the  way  of  life  ?  In  his  view  the  ultimate  goal 
which  all  men  seek  is  happiness ;  but  we  are 
accustomed  to  consider  the  pursuit  of  happiness 
misleading.  A  better  term  than  happiness  is 
well-being  ;  happiness  is  a  consequence  of  a  fully 
developed  life,  not  an  end  to  be  sought.  In  the 
"  Paradiso/'  as  his  thought  ascends,  he  drops 
the  infelicitous  term  as  insufficient.  Henceforth 
bis  favorite  expression  is  heatitude,  a  nobler, 
more  significant  word,  undegraded  by  unhallowed 
associations.  The  supreme  beatitude  he  unhesi- 
tatingly affirms  to  be  the  Vision  of  God.  To 
know  God,  to  love  Him  perfectly,  to  be  like  Him 
in  holiness,  this  is  life  eternal ;  and  the  statement 
is  unassailable.  How  shall  the  perfect  blessed- 
ness be  attained?  In  answering  this  question 
modern  theology  differs  radically  from  Dante 
both  in  statement  and  in  point  of  view. 

One  of  the  priceless  legacies  left  by  the  nine- 
teenth century  is  its  impressive  assertion  that  we 
are  living  in  a  universe.     There  is  — 


THE  VALUE  OF  HIS  THOUGHT  63 

"  One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 

And  one  far-ofE  divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves."  ^ 

We  have  hardly  thought  this  stupendous  truth 
through  in  all  its  bearings,  but  it  is  revolution- 
ary. The  supernatural  is  but  the  natural  passed 
beyond  our  sight ;  tune  is  that  spot  of  eternity 
which  we  are  now  touching ;  the  temporal  is  that 
part  o£  the  everlasting  that  sweeps  for  a  moment 
into  the  circle  of  time.  Life  is  all  of  a  piece, 
and  we  do  not  understand  it  unless  we  look  at  it 
whole.  In  separating  it  mechanically  and  study- 
ing dissociated  processes  we  get  an  erroneous 
impression. 

Now  the  Middle  Ages,  with  all  their  passion 
for  unity,  were  essentially  dualistic.  They 
divided  the  sovereignty  of  Europe  between  the 
Church  and  the  State ;  they  considered  that  man 
had  a  twofold  end,  temporal  and  spiritual  feli- 
city. The  Emperor  was  the  guide  to  one,  the 
Pope  to  the  other.  Reason  teaches  man  how  to 
live  amid  things  temporal,  and  revelation  amid 
things  eternal.  The  cardinal  virtues  distinguish 
one,  the  theological  virtues  the  other.  When 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas  attempted  to  gather  into 
one  comprehensive  system  all  rehgious  and 
ethical  truths,  his  work  had  the  fatal  defect 
of  dualism ;  and  when  Dante  made  the  philoso- 
phy of  Aquinas  the  fabric  of  his  great  poem,  he 

1  Tennyson,  In  Memoriam. 


64  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

incorporated  the  flaw  along  with  the  truth.  A 
philosopliy  of  salvation  cannot  be  perfectly  true 
that  sets  reason  so  distinctly  over  against  revela- 
tion, and  so  completely  divorces  the  ethical  from 
the  religious  process.  In  actual  life  there  is  no 
such  separation.  The  moral  rests  upon  the  spiri- 
tual, with  no  such  chasm  as  the  broad  division 
between  "  Purgatory  "  and  "  Paradise  "  would 
seem  to  indicate.  A  careful  observer  said  that 
the  Wesleyan  revival  improved  the  broadcloth  of 
England.  Character  usually  grows  out  of  faith  : 
it  is  not  the  pedestal  upon  which  faith  plants  its 
feet.  We  generally  consider  that  the  initial  step 
of  the  right  life  is  an  act  of  faith.  The  soul 
realizes  its  condition,  trusts  itself  to  God,  and  by 
a  spiritual  energy  takes  hold  of  the  divine  life. 
"Faith,"  says  Horace  Bushnell,  "is  a  transac- 
tion. It  is  the  trusting  of  one's  being  to  a 
being,  there  to  be  rested,  kept,  guided,  moulded, 
governed,  and  possessed  forevero"  Faith  is  that 
supreme  energy  by  which  the  soul  attaches  it- 
self in  vital  union  to  God.  Through  this  union 
the  life  of  God  enters  into  the  soul,  causing  a 
divine  regeneration  and  making  the  man  a  new 
creature.  This  new  spirit  changes  his  purposes, 
ennobles  his  loves,  purifies  his  feelings.  He  is 
transformed  by  the  renewing  of  the  mind. 

Our  modern  orthodox  view,  beginning  with 
faith,  emphasizes  the  redemptive  grace  of  God,  and 
insists  that  man  is  saved,  not  by  what  he  does  for 


THE  VALUE  OF  HIS  THOUGHT  65 

himself,  but  by  what  God  does  for  him  and  in 
him.  The  thought  is  constantly  coming  out 
in  our  hymns  and  sermons  that  the  first  step  in 
the  way  of  salvation  is  the  vital  union  of  the  soul 
with  God  through  faith.  We  measure  progress 
by  our  deepenmg  consciousness  that  our  hves  are 
"  hid  with  Christ  in  God,"  and  out  of  this  senso 
of  intimate  relationship  grow  all  Clu'istian  joy 
and  peace  and  hope. 

Coming  to  Dante  from  the  atmosphere  of  the 
modern  pidpit,  we  are  surprised  at  the  utter 
absence  of  this  feehng  of  the  union  of  the  soul 
with  God  during  the  process  of  salvation.  The 
redeemed  look  continually  into  His  face  and  are 
sensibly  one  with  Him  ;  but  the  toiling  spirits 
who  clhnb  the  Mount  of  Purification  have  no 
sweet  sense  of  the  indwelling  Christ ;  no  "  joy  in 
the  Holy  Ghost ; "  they  do  not  "  dwell  in  the  secret 
place  of  the  Most  High  ;  "  they  would  apparently 
not  understand  what  Paul  meant  when  he  said, 
"  It  is  no  longer  I  that  five,  but  Christ  that  hveth 
m  me. 

We  shall  recur  to  this  thought  in  our  study  of 
the  "  Purgatorio."  It  is  enough  now  to  point  out 
the  fact  that  Dante's  dualism  causes  him  to  give 
an  imperfect  and  thoroughly  inadequate  impres- 
sion of  the  power  of  the  rehgious  faith  and  affec- 
tions in  promoting  moral  purity. 

Another  characteristic  continually  manifests 
itself.    One  cannot  fail  to  note  how  conspicuously 


66  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DAXTE 

Christ  is  absent  from  this  mighty  drama  of  salva- 
tion. Plis  work  of  atonement  is  assumed,  His 
deity  is  fully  recognized,  but  He  Himself  is  rather 
a  celestial  glory  in  the  background  than  a  perva- 
sive presence  on  the  scene  of  action.  In  Dante 
there  is  not  the  faintest  intimation  of  the  thought, 
so  prominent  in  these  days,  that  Christ  is  Chris- 
tianity. His  is  distinctively  a  gospel  of  a  system, 
ours  of  a  person.  To  him  the  truth  came  through 
many  channels,  the  Scriptures,  the  Fathers,  the 
Councils ;  we  study  chiefly  the  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus.  He  emphasized  the  fathomless  mysteries 
of  truth ;  we  call  attention  to  the  simplicity  that  is 
in  Christ.  With  the  Catholic  of  the  Middle  Ages 
faith  was  usually  conceived  as  belief  in  a  system 
of  dogma ;  with  us  it  is  trust  in  a  person.  Dante 
the  scholar  was  in  sympathy  with  the  conception 
of  his  time,  but  Dante  the  poet  felt  his  heart 
crying  out  for  the  personal  element,  which  he 
satisfied  in  personifying  religious  truths  in  the 
fair  form  of  Beatrice.  She  occupies  the  position 
which  a  religious  genius  of  a  different  type,  such 
as  St.  Francis  or  Thomas  a  Kempis,  would  have 
given  to  Christ. 

But  while  the  form  into  which  this  "Lord  of 
the  song  preeminent"  threw  his  message  is  alien 
to  many  of  our  modes  of  thought,  the  substance 
changes  not.  The  materials  with  which  he 
wrought  his  monumental  work  are  essentially  the 
same  in  all  ages,  and  what  tliis  vivid  man,  with  liis 


THE  VALUE   OF  HIS  THOUGHT  67 

preternatural  insight  into  the  heart  of  things,  saw, 
—  this  is  his  enduring  word  to  the  world.  Such 
stuff  as  his  dream  was  made  of  is  permanent,  and 
what  he  saw  in  liis  raw  material  is  the  real  burden 
of  his  prophecy.  His  subject-matter,  as  he  him- 
self stated  it,  is  "  Man,  subjected,  in  so  far  as  by 
the  freedom  of  his  will  he  deserves  it,  to  just  re- 
ward or  punishment."  -^  The  accountability  of 
man,  the  supremacy  of  the  moral  law,  and  the  cer- 
tainty of  its  rewards  and  punishments,  —  these 
truths,  profoundly  conceived  by  a  master  mind, 
and  set  forth  with  extraordinary  dramatic  power, 
can  be  written  on  no  sibyl  leaves,  easily  blown 
away.  They  command  the  attention  of  all  times. 
Of  these  eternal  verities  Dante  is  the  most  pow- 
erful prophet  m  the  Christian  centuries. 

He  differs  from  nearly  all  preeminent  preachers 
of  righteousness  in  liis  starting  point.  He  begins 
with  man,  they  with  God.  Among  the  austere 
Hebrew  prophets  Dante  most  closely  resembled 
Isaiah  in  majesty  of  thought  and  vigor  of  lan= 
guage ;  but  the  theme  of  the  Jewish  statesman 
was  the  awful  holiness  of  Jehovah.  Among 
modern  seers  Jonathan  Edwards  is  most  nearly 
related  to  our  poet  in  subtilty  of  intellect,  inten- 
sity of  conviction,  and  terrific  power  of  imagina- 
tion. The  New  Eno^lander  saw  God,  hio^h  and 
lifted  up.  Before  that  august  vision  man  shriv- 
eled into  nothingness.     He  is  a  worm  of  the  dust, 

^  Letter  to  Can  Grande  della  Scala. 


68  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

depraved  to  the  core,  and  if  he  is  saved,  it  is 
through  no  merit  of  his  own,  but  through  the 
elective  mercy  of  the  Ahnighty.  God,  His  glory, 
His  decrees,  His  compassion  ;  and  man,  a  sinner 
"  saved  by  grace," — this  is  most  often  the  message 
of  the  foremost  teachers  of  Christianity.  It  seems 
impossible  to  have  a  majestic  consciousness  of  the 
greatness  of  God  without  having  man  appear  a 
pitiable  creature.  Dante  began  with  man  rather 
than  with  God.  He  riveted  his  gaze  on  the 
sovereign  power  of  the  human  wdll  instead  of  on 
the  decrees  of  the  Omnipotent.  He  stood  at  the 
opposite  pole  of  thought  to  Calvin  and  Edwards. 
He  could  never  say,  with  the  celebrated  French 
preacher,  "  God  alone  is  great ! "  Man  is  great, 
too ;  he  is  no  mere  worm,  plucked  by  a  mighty 
hand  from  destruction,  and  changed  into  celestial 
beauty  by  irresistible  grace.  He  is  an  imposing 
figure,  master  of  his  fate,  fighting  against  princi- 
palities and  powers,  strong  through  divine  help 
to  climb  the  rugged  path  of  purification  and 
achieve  blessedness. 

Not  only  was  Dante  antipodal  to  many  illustri- 
ous religious  teachers  in  his  point  of  view,  but 
he  differed  radically  from  the  great  dramatists  in 
his  conception  of  the  regal  power  of  the  will  to 
conquer  all  the  ills  of  life.  Free  will  is  the  great- 
est of  God's  gifts,  as  Beatrice  informs  the  poet. 
This  potential  freedom,  that  in  every  right  life  is 
continually  becoming  actual,  makes  man  superior 


THE  VALUE  OF  HIS  THOUGHT  69 

to  disaster  and  every  hostile  force.  Dante  called 
his  greatest  work  a  comedy  because  it  had  a 
happy  ending.  There  is  a  deep  reason  why  it 
had  a  happy  ending.  It  is  because  man  can  be  a 
complete  victor  in  life's  battle.  Our  poet  leads 
the  spectator  through  fiercer  miseries  than  does 
ijEschylus  or  Shakespeare  ;  but  their  immortal 
works  are  tragedies,  ending  in  death,  while  his  is 
a  comedy,  issuing  in  triumphant  life.  Two  appar- 
ently antagonistic  elements  enter  into  our  lives,  — 
Necessity  and  Freedom.  The  great  tragedies  of 
literature  have  been  built  upon  necessity.  Dante 
has  reared  his  monumental  poem  upon  freedom. 
Notice  the  fundamental  conception  of  Shakespeare 
in  his  masterpieces.  Since  he  is  looking  at  this 
life  only,  its  happiness,  its  titles,  its  successes,  he 
declares  that  man  but  half  controls  his  fate. 
Mightier  powers  are  working  upon  him,  in  whose 
hands  he  is  but  a  plaything.  The  individual, 
foolishly  dreaming  that  he  is  free,  is  but  a  shuttle- 
cock, tossed  about  by  other  spiritual  forces.  Ham- 
let wills  with  all  his  soul  to  kill  the  king,  but  he 
cannot  do  it :  he  has  a  fatal  weakness  which  he  is 
unable  to  overcome.  Macbeth  does  not  wish  to 
commit  murder :  he  is  a  puppet  in  the  grasp  of  a 
stronger,  darker  spirit.  Othello,  blindly  led  on 
to  his  own  undoing,  enters  his  hell  through  no 
will  of  his  own  :  a  craftier  will  controls  him.  The 
hero  of  modern  tragedy  is  under  the  dominion  of 
his  chief  characteristic.     Given  this  nature  of  his, 


70  THE  TEACHINGS   OF  DANTE 

with  certain  untoward  events,  and  his  doom  is 
sealed. 

The  leading  Greek  dramas  still  more  impres- 
sively interpret  man  as  a  grain  of  wheat  between 
the  upper  and  nether  millstones  of  adverse  forces. 
The  characters  appear  to  be  free,  but  if  one  looks 
deeper  down,  he  perceives  that  they  are  the 
representatives  of  vast  world  powers,  while  the 
tragedy  is  the  suffering  of  the  individual  as 
the  two  malio'n  enerofies  crush  asrainst  each  other. 
The  classic  tragedy  is  commonly  constructed  on 
the  essential  antagonism  between  the  family  and 
the  state.  The  necessity  of  such  collision  is  no 
longer  apparent  to  us,  and  we  have  changed  the 
names  of  the  colossal  powers  that  make  sport 
of  human  life.  For  family  and  state  we  read 
heredity  and  environment,  —  taskmasters  as  ex- 
acting and  irresistible,  —  which  allow  even  less 
room  for  the  freedom  of  the  individual  will. 
About  three  hundred  years  ago  more  than  a 
thousand  ancestors  of  each  of  us  were  living. 
Their  blood  mingling  in  us  determines  by  an 
inexorable  law  what  w^e  are.  Environment  com- 
pletes the  work  heredity  began,  making  our 
characters  and  careers  the  inevitable  resultants 
of  these  two  forces.  In  their  clashing  life  finds 
its  sorrow  and  perhaps  its  tragic  destruction. 

With  any  such  philosophy  Dante  might  have 
written  out  of  his  own  bitter  experiences  one 
of  the  world's  darkest  tragedies,  rather  than  its 


THE  VALUE   OF  HIS  THOUGHT  71 

supreme  comedy.  He  had  certainly  been  the 
sport  of  hostile  forces.  Born  of  knightly  blood, 
possessed  of  brilliant  genius,  cherishing  pure 
aims,  sensitive  to  the  sweetest  affections  and 
noblest  ideals,  loving  righteousness  and  hating 
iniquity,  an  unsullied  patriot,  by  the  fickle  pas- 
sions of  a  turbulent  mob  he  was  deprived  of 
city,  home,  family,  position,  property,  and  made 
a  lonely  exile,  condemned  to  a  horrible  death 
should  he  return  to  Florence.  If  tragedies  grow 
out  of  the  losses  of  the  individual  held  in  the 
grasp  of  relentless  and  uncontrollable  energies, 
then  Dante  had  in  his  ow^n  life  the  materials  for 
as  black  a  drama  as  was  ever  played  on  ancient 
or  modern  stao-e. 

But  the  immortal  Florentine  had  no  such  fatal- 
istic message  for  the  world.  Stripped  of  those 
very  things,  the  loss  of  which  the  immortal  poets 
have  held  made  life  a  disaster,  he  turned  his 
thoughts  inward,  and  in  his  soul  won  a  victory 
over  malis^nant  fate  to  which  he  reared  an  im- 
perishable  monument.  He  planted  himself  firmly 
on  the  Biblical  teaching  of  the  inherent  greatness 
of  man.  He  believed  with  Christ  that  "  a  man's 
life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  thino^s 
which  he  possesseth,"  and  with  Paul  that  he 
could  lose  all  things  and  still  be  more  than  con- 
queror. "  And  free  will,  which,  if  it  endure 
fatigue  in  the  first  battles  with  the  heavens,  af- 
terwards, if  it  be  well  nurtured,  conquers  every- 


72  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

thing."  ^  His  is  not  only  the  first  great  Chris- 
tian poem,  but  it  is  distinctively  the  Christian 
poem  of  the  world  in  its  majestic  conception  of 
man  and  his  possibilities.  Shakespeare's  religious 
instincts  compared  with  Dante's  were  weak.  He 
was  "  world-wide/'  while  Dante  was  "world-deep  " 
and  world-hio^h.  The  Eno^lishman  held  the  mir- 
ror  up  to  nature  ;  the  Italian  looked  into  the 
face  of  God,  and  beheld  all  things  with  Hght  of 
the  eternal  world  upon  them.  Tennyson  had  no 
such  triumphant  evangel  for  sorrowing  humanity. 
He  had  a  message  of  faith  and  hope  for  an  age 
of  doubt,  but  he  utters  no  such  stirring  notes  of 
victory  as  Dante.  His  friend,  Aubrey  de  Yere, 
once  remarked  to  him  that  "  In  Memoriam  "  was 
analoo'ous  to  the  "  Divina  Commedia."  It  was  the 
history  of  a  soul  contending  with  a  great  sorrow. 
It  began  all  woe,  it  had  its  Purgatorio  abounding 
in  consolation  and  peace,  why  not  add  a  Paradiso 
of  triumph  and  joy  ?  The  poet  answered,  "  I 
have  written  what  I  have  felt  and  known,  and  I 
wall  never  write  anything  else."  ^  Dante's  poem  is 
an  autobiography  ;  but  he  passed  beyond  "  con- 
solation and  peace  "  to  a  victorious  joy.  From 
the  heaven  of  the  Fixed  Stars  he  looked  back 

"  and  saw  this  globe 
So  pitiful  of  semblance,  that  perforce 
It  moved  my  smiles  :  and  him  in  truth  I  hold 
For  wisest  who  esteems  it  least."  ^ 

1  Pxirg.  xw\.  76-78. 

2  A  If  red  Lord  Tennyson  ;  a  Memoir  by  his  Son.    Vol.  i.  p.  294. 

3  Par.  xxii.  130-133.    (Gary's  trans.) 


THE  VALUE  OF  HIS  THOUGHT  73 

In  the  insufferable  Light  he  saw  his  life  and  knew 
that  the  Primal  Love  shone  through  it  all.  We 
know  that  in  thought,  and  believe  that  to  a  large 
degree  in  experience,  he  had  that  visio  Dei  which 
made  him  the  exultant  and  confident  prophet  o£ 
man's  possible  victory.  That  every  life  can  turn 
the  darkest  tragedy  into  glorious  comedy,  that 
the  dread  foes  of  man  are  not  bellio;erent  circum- 
stances,  but  the  riotous  passions,  —  the  leopard 
of  incontinence,  the  lion  of  violence,  and  the  wolf 
of  avarice,  —  this  is  the  ringing  proclamation  of 
this  mediaeval  prophet.  No  other  masterpiece  in 
literature,  excepting  the  Bible,  gives  such  an  im- 
pression of  the  actual  and  potential  greatness  of 
man.  What  was  probably  Dante's  last  poem 
clearly  shows  that  he  had  won  in  his  own  heart 
the  victory  he  declared  possible  to  all. 

"  The  king,  by  whose  rich  grace  His  servants  be 
With  pleasure  beyond  measure  set  to  dwell, 
Ordains  that  I  my  bitter  wrath  dispel 

And  lift  mine  eyes  to  the  great  Consistory; 

Till,  noting  how  in  glorious  quires  agree 
The  citizens  of  that  fair  citadel, 
To  the  Creator  I  His  creature  swell 

Their  song,  and  all  their  love  possesses  me. 

So  when  I  contemplate  the  great  reward 

To  which  our  God  has  called  the  Christian  seed, 
I  long  for  nothing  else  but  only  this, 

And  then  my  soul  is  grieved  in  thy  regard, 
Dear  friend,  who  seek'st  not  thy  nearest  need, 
Renouncing  for  slight  joys  the  perfect  bliss  !  "  * 

1  To  Giovanni  Quirino,  trans,  by  Kossetti. 


THE  VISION  OF  SIN 


"  Wherewithal  a  man  sinneth,  by  the  same  also  shall  he  be 
punished."  —  Book  of  Wisdom. 

"  Which  way  I  fly  is  Hell,  myself  am  Hell."  —  Milton. 

*'  Hell  hath  no  limits,  nor  is  circumscribed 
To  one  self  place  :  but  where  we  are  is  Hell, 
And  where  Hell  is  there  we  shall  ever  be. 
And,  to  be  brief,  when  all  the  world  dissolves, 
And  every  creature  shall  be  purified. 
All  places  shall  be  Hell  which  are  not  Heaven." 

—  Marlowe. 

"  We  cannot  doubt  that  Dante,  in  recording  the  vision  vouch- 
safed him  by  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  was  moved  by  more  than  the 
overmastering  impulse  to  create  ;  surely  his  desire  was  set  to  con- 
vince the  world  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of  judgment.  But  so 
far  as  the  action  of  the  poem  is  concerned,  it  centres  in  the  salvation 
of  his  own  soul  alone.  He  accepts,  with  deep,  speechless  sorrow, 
yet  seemingly  with  no  instinct  to  bring  succor,  the  agony  which 
he  beholds.  Doubtless  profound  reverence  keeps  him  silent,  yet 
one  can  imagine  no  modern  man  passing  through  those  piteous 
shades  without  at  least  one  heart-wrung  cry  :  '  Would  God  I  had 
died  for  thee  ! '  The  austere  silence  of  Dante  is  for  a  reader  of 
to-day  the  most  awful  thing  in  the  *  Inferno.'  "  —  ViDA  D.  ScuD- 

D£R. 


THE    DARK    SPOT     IX    THE    UNIVERSE 

Boccaccio  is  the  authority  for  the  following 
familiar  Dante  anecdote  :  "It  happened  one 
day  in  Verona  (the  fame  of  his  work  being  al- 
ready known  to  all,  and  especially  that  part  of 
the  '  Commedia '  wdiich  is  called  the  '  Inferno') 
and  himself  known  to  many,  both  men  and  w^omen, 
that  as  he  passed  before  a  door  where  several  wo- 
men were  seated,  one  of  them  said  softly,  but  not 
too  low  to  be  heard  by  him  and  those  who  were 
wdth  him  :  '  Do  you  see  him  wdio  goes  to  Hell  and 
comes  back  again  when  he  pleases,  and  brings 
back  news  of  those  who  are  down  below  ?  '  To 
which  another  of  the  w^omen  answered  simply  : 
'  Certainly  you  speak  the  truth.  See  how 
scorched  his  beard  is,  and  how  dark  he  is  from 
heat  and  smoke  ! '  When  Dante  heard  this  talk 
behind  him,  and  saw  that  the  women  believed 
entirely  what  they  said,  he  was  pleased,  and,  con- 
tent that  they  should  have  this  opinion  of  him, 
went  on  his  way  with  a  smile."  ^ 

If  the  "  Inferno  "  were  what  it  is  commonly  be- 
lieved to  be  —  a  horrible  and  minutely  elaborated 
picture  of  avast  prison-house  of  torture  to  frighten 

^  Vita  di  Dante. 


78  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

timid  souls  into  larger  gifts  to  the  chiircli  —  even 
the  superhuman  genius  of  the  sweetest  of  singers 
could  not  have  saved  it  from  oblivion.  Its  pic- 
tures of  gloom  and  of  fiery  horror  must  reveal 
enough  truth  that  is  ever  contemporaneous  to  ac- 
count for  its  enduring  power.  Dante,  being  the 
child  of  his  time,  undoubtedly  believed  in  a  literal 
Hell,  hideous  as  a  nightmare  haunting  the  sleep 
of  devils.  The  place  as  well  as  the  truth  was  a 
reality  to  him.  We  may  reject  the  dogma  of  an 
eternal  prison  of  torment ;  but  to  our  peril  do  we 
nesflect  the  truth  of  which  the  darkness  and  the 
fire  are  symbols. 

There  is  a  shadow  cast  by  the  world's  sin.  As 
long  as  there  is  evil  there  will  be  a  dark  spot  in 
the  universe,  and  that  spot  is  Hell.  "While  sin  is. 
Hell  must  be.  This  gloom  must  be  a  place  of 
woe  and  bitter  anguish.  Love,  as  well  as  justice, 
ordains  that  sin  and  its  pestilential  shade  be  a 
place  of  sorrow,  fierce  pains,  and  revolting  death. 
Into  this  murky  darkness,  where  are  to  be 
heard  the  sighs,  laments,  deep  wailings,  strange 
tongues,  horrible  cries,  words  of  woe,  accents  of 
anger,  voices  high  and  hoarse,  all  born  of  the 
world's  sin,  Dante,  with  his  "  head  girt  with  hor- 
ror "  and  with  compassionate  heart,  entered.  He 
went  down  deep  into  the  world's  iniquity.  He  pen- 
etrated into  those  caverns  of  woe  which  lie  far 
down  in  the  soul,  that  he  might  know  what  sin  is 
in  its  nature  and  consequences.  The  "  Inferno  "  is 
Dante's  conception  of  sin. 


n 

THE     INFERNO     AN     EXPERIENCE 

We  must  remember  also  that  Dante  did  not 
write  the  "  Inferno  "  to  glut  his  malignant  spite  on 
his  enemies  by  revealing  them  in  torment.  Wal- 
ter Savage  Landor  but  showed  abysmal  ignorance 
when  he  described  the  "  Inferno  "  as  the  utterance 
of  "personal  resentment,  outrageous  to  the  pitch  of 
the  ludicrous,  positively  screaming."  Much  truer 
is  Mazzini's  statement :  "  Dante  had  too  much 
greatness  in  his  soul,  and  too  much  pride  (it  may 
be)  to  make  revenge  a  personal  matter ;  he  had 
nothing  but  contempt  for  his  own  enemies,  and 
never,  except  in  the  case  of  Boniface  VIII.,  whom 
it  was  necessary  to  punish  in  the  name  of  religion 
and  Italy,  did  he  place  a  single  one  of  them  in 
the  '  Inferno,'  not  even  his  judge,  Cante  Gabri- 
elli."  ^  Undoubtedly  he  met  many  people  in  that 
dreadful  lazar-house  of  torture  whose  fate  weig^hed 
heavily  upon  his  heart.  But  his  poem  is  largely 
autobiographical,  and  perforce  he  must  describe 
sin  as  he  himself  had  seen  it,  and  must  place  the 
people  in  the  "  Inferno  "  whom  he  had  found  suf- 
fering in  the  hell  which  sin  always  creates.    He  did 

1  Moore,  Studies  in  Dante,  second  series,  p.  219,  n. 


80  THE   TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

not  wish  to  find  Francesca  wrapped  in  that  fright- 
ful doom.  Her  torments  made  him  sad  and  pit- 
eous to  weeping,  yet  he  had  no  alternative.  Prob- 
ably in  his  impressionable  boyhood  he  had  heard 
the  pathetic  story  of  her  fateful  passion.  In  her 
tragic  experience  he  had  learned  that  illicit  love,  ^ 
though  for  a  moment  it  may  seem  innocent  and 
sweet,  will  become  a  whirling  and  smiting  tern- ' 
pest  tormenting  forever.  He  could  not  help 
meeting  her  in  the  nether  gloom,  because  in  this 
life,  when  she  had  come  within  the  circle  of  his 
knowledge,  he  had  found  her  in  Hell.  Brunette 
Latini  was  one  whom  Dante  loved,  and  upon 
whom  he  pronounced  the  loftiest  eulogy  that  can 
be  given  a  friend  :  "  For  in  my  mind  is  fixed, 
and  now  fills  my  heart,  the  dear,  good,  paternal 
image  of  you,  when  in  the  world  hour  by  hour 
you  taught  me  how  man  makes  himself  eternal."  ^ 
Surely  it  afforded  the  poet  no  pleasure  to  meet 
him,  a  baked  and  withered  figure,  on  the  burning  ^ 
sands.  But  Dante  knew  the  man's  besetting  sin.> 
Perchance  from  what  he  had  seen  in  Latini's 
sufferings  on  earth  he  had  learned  its  scorching, 
deadly  nature,  and  he  had  no  choice  but  to  find 
him  enduring  the  consequences  of  his  transgres- 
sions. 

The  "  Inferno  "  represents  his  experience  with 
evil  in  himself  and  others,  where  the  sins  appear 
in  their  ultimate  results,  and  the  people  are  fully 
given  over  to  the  wrong  they  loved. 

1  Inf.  XV.  82-85. 


m 

THE    THREE    DEGREES    OF   SIN 

What  did  this  deep-souled,  clear-visioned 
man  find  out  sin  to  be  as  in  dolorous  journey  he 
went  through  the  nether  gloom  ? 

In  the  architecture  of  the  infernal  regfion  he 
sets  forth  his  conception  of  the  different  degrees 
of  iniquity.  Sitting  behind  the  great  tomb  of 
Pope  Anastasius,  while  they  were  becoming  ac- 
customed to  the  horrible  excess  of  stench  which 
was  coming  up  from  the  deep  abyss  of  the  pit, 
Virgil  unfolds  to  Dante  the  structural  plan  of 
Hell.  It  is  so  constructed  that  those  who  have 
sinned  most  heinously  are  the  deepest  down^ 
and  thus  farthest  from  God,  for  sin  separates, 
from  the  Most  High.  There  is,  moreover,  a 
broad  distinction  between  sins  of  impulse  and 
those  of  settled  habit.  Of  all  the  dispositions 
which  heaven  abides  not,  incontinence  is  the 
least  offensive.  Therefore  the  outbreaks  of  the 
turbulent  and  untaught  passions  —  carnality, 
gluttony,  anger  —  are  punished  in  the  upper 
circles  ;  the  pit  of  Hell  is  reserved  for  sins  of 
malice.     Malice  wins  the  hate  of  God  because  it 


82  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

seeks  the  injury  of  others,  either  by  force  or 
fraud.  Of  the  two,  fraud  is  the  worse ;  there- 
fore, the  fraudulent  are  in  the  lowest  circles  and 
more  woe  assails  them.  Thus  the  great  Tuscan 
passes  judgment  upon  the  fundamental  divisions 
of  wrong'-doing :  incontinence,  violence,  and 
fraud. 

We  make  the  same  general  distinctions.  Sins 
of  the  flesh  are  less  culpable  than  those  of  the 
spirit.  Warm-blooded,  impetuous  faidts  are  not 
so  damnable  as  reptilian  craft  and  sneaking  de- 
ceit. The  publicans  and  harlots  go  into  the 
kinodom  before  the  Pharisees.  Dante  differs 
from  our  modern  thought,  however,  in  this. 
We  consider  that  guilt  lies  in  the  intention 
rather  than  in  the  act ;  he  adopts  the  elemental 
principle  of  Roman  jurisprudence  that  punish- 
ment shall  be  proportional  to  the  evil  effects 
upon  society  from  wrong-doing.  The  individual 
is  accountable,  not  for  the  nature  of  the  crime 
per  se,  but  for  the  injury  done  to  others.  Hence 
treachery,  being  the  most  contrary  to  the  love  of 
man  and  of  God,  is  the  blackest  of  all  sins,  and 
the  arch-traitors  against  Church  and  State  are 
feeding  the  insatiable  mouth  of  Lucifer. 


IV 

THE   NATUBB    OF   SIN 

All  definitions  of  sin  seem  bald  and  utterly 
inadequate.  To  call  it  "  folly/'  "  missing  the 
mark,"  "  the  gap  between  the  real  and  the 
ideal,"  "  losing  the  good  of  the  intellect " —  all 
this  is  tame  enough.  Definitions  make  little 
impression.  Sin  must  be  seen  to  be  shunned ; 
and  only  the  novelist,  the  artist,  the  poet,  can 
set  forth  transgression  in  its  monstrosity  and 
naked  hideousness.  Michael  Angelo's  "  Last 
Judgment"  and  George  Eliot's  "Romola"  are 
more  powerful  deterrents  from  evil  than  any 
definitions  of  the  theologfians.  But  althoug-h 
the  seed  of  sin  is  sown  in  this  life,  the  harvest 
ripens  in  the  next.  Any  adequate  revelation  of 
iniquity  must  have  its  scene  laid  in  the  future 
world.  The  seer  must  go  among  the  "  truly 
dead "  to  make  known  the  full  proportions  of 
his  dark  and  lurid  truth. 

Dante  employs  three  distinct  ways  of  reveal- 
ing the  nature  of  each  sin.  It  is  symbolized  in 
the  repulsive  monsters  presiding  over  the  cir- 
cles; in  the  environment  in  which  the  sinner 
is  punished ;  and  in  the  condition  and  torment 
of  the  sinner  himself. 


SIN    PERSONIFIED    IN    DEMONS 

The  different  kinds  of  sin  are  usually  typified 
by  a  demon.  The  first  one  to  be  met  is  Minos, 
not  the  august  judge  of  mythology,  but  a  fiend, 
it  being  an  accepted  notion  of  the  Middle  Ages 
that  all  the  cjods  of  the  heathen  Avere  devils. 
Sitting  at  the  entrance  of  Hell  he  represents  in 
a  striking  manner  all  sin  when  it  comes  to  judg- 
ment. It  confesses  itself,  it  condemns  itself,  it 
snarls  at  itself.  In  a  stenchful  region,  whose 
putrid  smells  forcibly  remind  us  of  the  diseases 
of  the  glutton,  is  Cerberus,  a  personified  belly, 
quivering  for  food,  filthy,  greasy,  insatiably 
gnawing  the  howling  spirits  with  his  three  bark- 
ing mouths,  and  becoming  quiet  only  wdien  his 
ravenous  gullets  are  filled  with  mud.  Pluto, 
the  wolfish  god  of  avarice,  raises  a  cry  of  alarm 
when  Reason  enters  his  realm,  and  falls  like  a 
mastless  sail  when  he  hears  the  decree  of  God. 
Phlegyas,  who  had  fought  in  impious  wrath 
against  the  gods,  in  stifled  anger  ferried  Dante 
over  the  river  of  Hate.  The  Furies,  representing 
the  pride  of  intellect  which  makes  men  hostile 


SIN   PERSONIFIED  IN  DEMONS  85 

to  God,  are  guardians  on  the  glowing  towers  of 
the  city  of  Dis ;  even  Virgil  cannot  conquer 
these  stubborn  wills,  but  must  rely  on  some 
heavenly  messenger  of  grace  to  open  the  way. 
Violence  is  figured  in  Minotaur,  biting  himself 
and  plunging  in  fury.  Geryon  is  the  "  loath- 
some image  of  fraud,"  having  "the  face  of  a 
just  man,  so  benignant  from  its  face  outwardly, 
and  of  a  serpent  all  the  trunk  beside."  The 
giants,  guarding  the  circle  of  the  lowest  abyss, 
and  appearing  hke  enormous  towers  in  the 
gloom,  are  emblematic  of  the  enormity  of  crime. 
But  it  is  Lucifer  himself,  at  the  very  bottom 
of  the  pit,  at  the  centre  of  the  earth,  and  there- 
fore at  that  point  in  the  universe  farthest  re- 
moved from  God,  who  is  the  most  complete  type 
of  the  real  nature  of  sin.  Huge,  bloody,  loath- 
some, grotesque,  self-absorbed ;  not  dead  nor 
yet  alive ;  having  three^  faces,  one  fiery  red,  one 
between  white  and  yellow,  one  black  —  indi- 
cating the  threefold  character  of  sin  as  malig- 
nant, impotent,  and  ignorant ;  every  moment 
sending  forth  chilling  death,  making  others  woe- 
ful in  his  own  woes ;  punishing  his  followers  ^dth 
frightful  torture,  and  thus  undoing  himself  ;  the 
tears  of  the  world  flowing^  back  to  him  as  their 
source  and  becoming  his  torment ;  the  movement 
of  his  wings,  by  which  he  seeks  to  extricate  him- 
self, freezing  the  rivers  and  thus  imprisoning 
him,  —  what  more  fitting  personification  could 


86  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

this  seer  have  devised  to  show  evil  in  its  real 
deformity  and  folly  ?  The  hideous  and  self-cen- 
tred Lucifer  is  perhaps  the  truest  characteriza- 
tion of  sin  in  literature. 

There  is  an  interesting,  although  entirely  un- 
conscious corroboration,  in  the  recently  published 
life  of  Francis  Parkman,  of  Dante's  fidelity  to 
experience  in  representing  Satan  as  bound  in  a 
stagnant  pool.  It  is  quoted  to  prove  that  the 
Italian  was  true  to  life,  both  as  a  prophet  and 
artist  in  his  delineation  of  abject  misery.  Mr. 
Parkman  says  :  "  From  a  complete  and  ample 
experience  of  both,  I  can  bear  witness  that  no 
amount  of  physical  pain  is  so  intolerable  as  the 
position  of  being  stranded,  and  being  doomed 
to  lie  rotting  for  year  after  year."  Vassall  Mor- 
ton —  the  hero  of  Parkman's  only  novel,  into 
the  sketch  of  whose  character  the  historian 
threw  so  much  of  his  own  life  —  cries  out  from 
his  Austrian  dungeon :  "  It  is  but  a  weak 
punishment  to  which  Milton  dooms  his  ruined 
angel.  Action,  enterprise,  achievement, — a  Hell 
like  that  is  Heaven  to  the  cells  of  Ehrenburg. 
He  should  have  chained  him  to  a  rock,  and  left 
him  alone  to  the  torture  of  his  own  thoughts ; 
the  unutterable  agonies  of  a  mind  preying  on 
itself  for  want  of  other  sustenance.  Action ! 
mured  in  this  dungeon,  the  soul  gasps  for  it  as 
the  lungs  for  air.  Action,  action,  action  !  —  all 
in  all !     What  is  life  without  it  ?     A  marsh,  a 


SIN  PERSOXIFIED  IN  DEMONS  87 

quagmire,  a  rotten,  stagnant  pool.''  It  is  singu- 
lar that  both  Dante  and  Parkman  should  figure 
the  depth  of  wretchedness  as  the  bondage  of  a 
quagmire. 

Milton  has  chosen  another  way  to  portray 
the  ultimate  vulgarity  and  contemptibleness  of 
sin.  In  the  beginning  of  "  Paradise  Lost " 
Satan  appears  as  a  majestic  being,  titanic  in 
force,  possessing  still  some  of  his  original  splen- 
dor like  the  sun  seen  through  the  misty  air.  He 
is  an  archangel  ruined,  and  full  of  primal  energy 
is  capable  of  putting  to  proof  the  high  suprem- 
acy of  heaven's  perpetual  King.  Suddenly  out 
of  the  infernal  deep  Pandemonium  arises  ;  seated 
on  his  throne  of  royal  state  Satan  unfolds  to  his 
peers  in  words  of  lofty  eloquence  his  vast  plans 
of  rebellion.  Passing  beyond  the  gates  of  Sin 
and  Death  he  works  his  grievous  way  through 
chaos  till  he  comes  in  sio'ht  of  Eden.  Here 
he  falls  into  many  doubts,  but  unwilling  to  sub- 
mit to  the  will  of  God,  he  confirms  himself  in 
evil.  As  craft  and  serpentine  deceit  take  the 
place  of  open  war,  the  dee25er  sin  brings  the 
deeper  ruin  to  his  nature.  Returning  to  his 
followers  he  ascends  the  throne  from  which 
but  a  short  time  before  he  had  spoken  such 
heroic  words.  Refulgent  with  permissive  glory 
he  begins  to  recount  his  exploits  :  but  paus- 
ing to  receive  the  expected  applause  of  the 
Stygian  throng  he  is  amazed  to  hear  — 


88  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

"  from  innumerable  tongues, 
A  dismal  universal  hiss."  ^ 

Not  long  did  he  wonder ;  his  face  began  to  draw 
sharp  and  spare,  his  arms  clung  to  his  ribs,  his 
lecfs  entwined  each  other,  and  his  noble  elo- 
quence  changed  into  a  hiss  ! 

"  Down  he  fell 
A  monstrous  serpent  on  his  belly  prone, 
Reluctant,  but  in  vain  :  a  greater  power 
Now  rul'd  him,  punish'd  in  the  shape  he  sinn'd, 
According  to  his  doom  ;  he  would  have  spoke, 
But  hiss  to  hiss  returned  with  forked  tongue 
To  forked  tongue,  for  now  were  all  transform'd 
Alike  to  serpents  all."  ^ 

Thus  does  Milton  teach  the  impressive  truth 
that  while  sin  at  its  beginning  may  have  some- 
thinof  of  the  m'^'indeur  of  rebellion  and  the  fasci- 
nation  of  daring,  in  the  end  it  loses  all  attraction 
and  becomes  reptilian,  loathsome,  deceitful,  a 
thing  of  the  slime,  whose  proper  language  is  a 
hiss !  With  equal  clearness  he  asserts  that  the 
followers  of  evil  will  inevitably  change  from 
fierce  conspirators  to  the  viper's  brood. 

We  read  the  same  lesson  in  even  more  power- 
ful colors  in  the  experiences  of  Him  who  knew 
sin  as  none  other  has  ever  known  it.  He  who 
would  save  the  world  must  know  what  sin  is  in 
its  height  and  depth.  He  must  feel  the  burden 
of  it  on  His  own  soul,  if  He  would  make  an 
atonement  for  the  people.  What  did  He  find  it  to 
be  ?     He  first  met  it  in  its  nobler  aspect.     In  the 

1  Par.  Lost,  bk.  x.  507.  ^  /^j^.  513-520. 


SIN  PERSONIFIED  IN  DEMONS  89 

wilderness  He  was  tempted  by  the  Prince  of  this 
world,  and  the  issue  was  a  world-wide  and  an 
age-long  empire.  It  was  a  contention  with  co- 
lossal powers  for  imperial  results.  As  He  lived 
down  more  deeply  into  the  world's  sin,  evil 
changed  its  form ;  it  expressed  itself  in  the  craft 
of  the  Pharisee,  the  fickleness  of  the  people,  the 
treachery  of  friends,  and  the  viperous  cunning  of 
the  priests.  Judas  and  not  the  great  hierarch  of 
darkness  now  became  the  type  of  evil.  He  goes 
more  deeply  yet,  even  to  the  bottom  of  the  abyss, 
and  knows  sin  in  its  most  dismal  woe,  feeling  the 
utter  horror  and  God-forsakenness  of  it.  This 
experience,  I  believe  it  was,  that  explains  the 
agony  of  Gethsemane  and  the  despairing  cry  of 
Calvary.  Dante,  as  he  entered  the  stupefying  pit 
of  the  uttermost  sin,  hid  himself  behind  Virgil, 
knowing  not  in  its  paralyzing  air  whether  he  was 
dead  or  ahve ;  the  Christ  as  He  sank  down  into 
the  murky  blackness  of  the  world's  transgression 
sweat  great  drops  of  blood,  and  in  the  gloom  of 
the  biting  darkness  that  encompassed  Him,  He 
discerned  not  a  ray  of  Divine  light.  To  Him 
sin  was  a  stupendous  burden,  a  horror,  a  night 
where  no  glory  of  God  shines. 

We  in  our  easy  tolerance  think  of  sin  as  some 
"  soft  infirmity  of  blood ; "  but  those  master- 
minds that  have  gone  down  the  deepest  into  the 
heart  of  evil  have  felt  that  they  were  entering  a 
dismal  world  of  chill  fog  and  sick  poison,  a  place 


90  THE   TEACHINGS   OF  DANTE 

of  squalor,  dull  misery,  and  benumbed  wretched- 
ness ;  and  He,  who  most  of  all  the  sons  of  men 
tasted  its  true  character  through  his  own  purity, 
found  it  to  be  paralyzing,  horrible,  God  forsaken. 


VI 

THE    ATMOSPHERE    SIN    CREATES 

It  was  a  favorite  thought  with  Dante  that  the 
soul  creates  the  atmosphere  in  which  it  Hves,  and 
builds  for  itself  a  mansion  or  a  dunofeon  accord- 
ing  as  its  deeds  are  good  or  evil.  Sin  makes  the 
air  which  the  soul  breathes  black  with  its  own 
folly,  hot  with  its  own  passion,  penurious  with 
its  own  sterility,  while  hope  causes  it  to  have  the 
roseate  colors  of  the  morning,  and  love  makes  it 
effulgent  with  celestial  light.  To  live  and  move 
and  have  one's  being  in  the  environment  one's 
self  has  formed  is  Heaven  or  Hell.  Naturally, 
therefore,  we  look  with  interest  upon  every  new 
setting  to  learn  the  poet's  conception  of  the  inner 
nature  of  the  evil  deed. 

As  he  has  divided  sin  into  three  grand  divi- 
sions, incontinence,  violence,  and  fraud,  we  are 
not  surprised  to  find  that  the  three  are  distin- 
guished by  characteristic  environments.  The 
incontinent  are  punished  in  murky  gloom,  for 
lust  darkens  the  mind ;  the  violent  suffer  in 
circles  where  the  perpetual  shadow  is  lighted  by 
the  flames  decreed  by  One  who  is  a  flame  of  fire 


92  THE   TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

against  the  rebellious  ;  the  treacherous  are  in  a 
zone  of  squalor  and  of  arctic  cold,  because  sin  at 
its  lowest  is  a  sorry,  stupid,  paralyzing  thing, 
congealing  all  flow  of  human  sympathy  and  chill- 
ing life  into  a  stagnant,  sterile  marsh. 

This  general  thought  Dante  refines  to  set  forth 
the  quality  of  particular  sins.  I  know  not  in  all 
literature  where  the  inner  spirit  of  paganism,  of 
culture  without  faith,  is  more  nobly  and  truly 
expressed.  Its  woe  is  its  hopelessness,  it  has  "  no 
plaint  but  that  of  sighs  which  made  the  eternal 
air  to  tremble."  In  Dante's  time  the  age  of 
faith  was  rapidly  passing  away ;  a  strong  taste  for 
classical  culture  was  taking  possession  of  men, 
presaging  a  new  day.  In  the  rich  treasury  of 
ancient  learning  he  who  was  the  morning  star 
of  the  Renaissance  could  not  but  delight,  yet  his 
penetrating  vision  saw  that  the  new  culture  with- 
out the  spirit  of  the  old  faith  was  the  mind's 
Inferno.^  In  a  picture  of  profound  pathos  he  has 
recorded  his  judgment ;  and  whenever  since  his 
day  culture  has  been  divorced  from  religious 
truth  its  devotees  bear  "  a  semblance  neither  sad 
nor  glad ;"  they  make  no  plaint,  but  without  hope 
they  live  in  desire.^^  Gluttony  is  a  benumbing, 
coarse,  swinish  infamy,  prolific  in  stenchful 
diseases,  and  is  punished  with  "  rain  eternal,  ac- 
cursed, cold,  and  heavy iS^  Coarse  hail,  and  foul 
water,  and  snow  pour  down  through  the  tene- 

^  Inf.  iv. 


THE  ATMOSPHERE   SIN  CREATES  93 

brous  air  :  the  earth  that  receives  them  stinks."  ^ 
v^The  river  of  hate,  "where  the  wrathful  smite  each 
other,  is  purple-black  ^ —  the  color  of  an  enraged 
countenance. '^  The  heresy  that  denies  immortal- 
ity is  a  real  entombment  of  the  soul ;  it  virtually 
cabins  and  confines  life  to  a  narrow  dungeon,  and 
in  the  end  closes  the  lid  and  shuts  out  the  heavens 
as  well  as  the  future,  —  a  fiery  tomb  is  thus  its 
most  appropriate  symbol.^(yTreachery  separates 
a  man  from  his  fellow,  freezes  the  current  of 
human  kindness,  chills  the  traitor's  own  heart, 
and  makes  his  face  currish ;  hence  in  the  pit 
upon  which  rests  the  weight  of  all  other  crimes, 
the  distorted,  livid  countenances  of  traitors  leer 
at  the  shuddering  poet  from  the  frozen  pool.* 
(C^  The  part  the  environment  has  in  typifying  and 
punishing  sin  is  stated  in  a  poetic  conception  of 
rare  suoforestiveness.  The  tears  and  blood  of  the 
earth  Dante  tells  us  flow  down  into  Hell,  formin^r 
its  four  rivers,  in  which  the  evil-doers  are  pun- 
ished. The  brown  waves  of  Acheron,  Styx 
darker  than  perse,  Phlegethon  of  boiling  blood, 
all  unite  to  form  the  frozen  Cocytus,  in  which 
Satan  and  the  traitors  are  imprisoned.^  Thus 
the  misery  he  inflicts  returns  upon  the  evil-doer 
to  be  his  torment. 

1  Inf.  vi.  2  Inf.  vii.  103.  »  Inf.  ix. 

*  Inf.  xxxiv.  ^  Inf.  xiv. 


VII 

THE    EFFECT    OF   SIN    ON    THE    SOUL 

The  condition  of  the  sufferers  is  perhaps  the 
most  graphic  portrayal  of  the  nature  of  the  sin\ 
for  which  they  are  in  woe.     Dante  beheved  that! 
the  penalty  of  sin  is  to  dwell  in  it.     Man  is  pun-' 
ished  by  his  sins  rather  than  for  them.     Hell  is      J^ 
to  hve  in  the  evil  character  one  has  made  for  him-  ijx 
self.     "  Wherewithal  a  man   sinneth,   with  the 
same  also  shall  he  be  punished."     Therefore  we 
have  but  to  observe  the  appearance,  the  action, 
the  feelings  of  the  doomed,  to  know  the  poet's 
conception   of    sin.  ^*  He    affirms   that    the    de- 
lights of  illicit  love  seem  sweet ;  but  in  reality 
are  a  smiting  storm,  whirling  and  driving  onward 
the   shrieking  and  blaspheming  spirits  forever- 
more.  ^-Sullenness  is  stagnant  anger ;  it  is  letting 
the  sun  go  down  upon  one's  wrath,  giving  place 
to  the  Devil,  until  wrath  becomes  a  sluggish  fume 
in  the  breast,  at  last  submerging  the  gurgling 
soul  in  its  own  oppressive  slime.^  Flattery  is  a 
sickening    ffltli ;    hypocrisy    is    a   gilded    cloak, 
heavy  as  lead,  a  wearisome  mantle  for  eternity ; 
thieving  is  a  hideous,  reptilian  sin,  and  as  the 


THE  EFFECT  OF  SIN  ON  THE  SOUL  95 

thief  changes  disguises  that  he  may  ply  his  sneak- 
ing trade,  so  at  last  his  soul  will  repeatedly  turn 
from  human  to  snaky  form,  hissing  and  creeping. 
Violence  against  the  divine  order  is  most  power- 
fully painted.  On  a  floor  of  dry  and  dense  sand, 
as  sterile  as  a  life  hostile  to  God,  blasphemers  are 
lying  supine  and  looking  up  into  the  heavens 
they  defied,  all  the  while  weeping  miserably ; 
usurers,  who  by  overvaluing  material  things  be- 
came sordid  and  obscured  the  divine  lineaments 
past  all  recognition,  are  crouching,  mere  wretched 
lumps  of  selfishness  ;  sodomites  are  raging  cease- 
lessly in  their  carnal  passion,  —  while  "  over  all 
the  sand,  with  a  slow  falling,  were  raining  down 
dilated  flakes  of  fire,  as  of  snow  on  Alps  without 
a  wind,"  for  against  the  doers  of  such  deeds  the 
Eternal  is  a  consuming  fire.^ 

By  such  terrible  nocturnes  does  this  grim 
painter  portray  sin's  essential  nature  and  its  in- 
evitable consequences. 

1  Inf.  xiv.  19-42. 


VIII 

AN     INTERPRETATION     OF     DANTE's     CONCEPTION 

OF    SIN 

The  ethical  teaching  of  this  austere  prophet 
regarding  the  true  character  of  sin  may  be  briefly 
summarized.  The  first  step  into  the  soul's  In- 
ferno is  most  clearly  indicated  by  the  condition 
of  the  weary  and  naked  crowd  that  gathers  upon 
the  banks  of  sad  Acheron,  which  forms  the  rim 
of  Hell.  Gnashing  their  teeth,  "  they  blasphemed 
God  and  their  parents,  the  human  race,  the 
place,  the  time,  and  the  seed  of  their  sowing,  and 
of  their  birth."  ^  In  the  denial  of  his  responsi- 
bility, by  casting  the  blame  of  his  evil  deeds  and 
woeful  condition  upon  others,  man  enters  the 
region  of  hopeless  and  dismal  wretchedness.  His 
punishment,  instead  of  cleansing  the  heart, 
hardens  it,  and  fills  it  with  all  bitterness,  wrath, 
and  violence.  Purgatory  is  pain  borne  in  resig- 
nation to  the  will  of  God  :  Hell  is  pain  endured 
with  a  rebellious  heart.  A  sense  of  the  divine 
justice  in  retribution  lifts  the  suffering  spirit 
from  the  nether  gloom  to  the  mountain  of  hope ; 

1  Inf.  iii.  103-105. 


\^ 


DANTE'S  CONCEPTION  OF  SIN  97 

but  to  view  trouble  as  the  whip  and  sting  of  an 
outrageous  fortune  is  to  put  one's  feet  in  the 
way  that  leads  to  death.  It  is  forever  true  that 
to  embark  on  the  river  of  sorrow  with  a  blasphemy 
upon  the  lips  and  bitterness  against  human  kind 
in  the  heart  is  to  pass  straight  to  the  abyss  of 
woe. 

This  bears  out  Dante's  main  contention  that 
Hell  is  atheism  in  any  of  its  many  forms.  When 
they  reached  the  entrance  of  Hell,  Virgil  said 
to  him :  "  We  have  come  to  this  place  where  I 
have  told  thee  that  thou  shalt  see  the  woeful 
jDCople  who  have  lost  the  good  of  the  under- 
standing." ^  It  was  the  prevalent  belief  of  the 
Middle  Ages  that  the  highest  good  of  the  mind 
is  the  contemplation  of  God.  To  know  Him  is 
life  eternal.  To  have  the  intellect  and  the  heart 
rest  serenely  in  the  sweet  sense  that  divine  com- 
passion and  righteousness  are  pervading  all  the 
processes  of  nature,  the  unfolding  of  history, 
the  disciplines  of  life,  and  that  all  things  are 
working  together  to  carry  out  a  benign  wiU, — 
this  is  the  hiofhest  beatitude  of  earth  and  the 
rapture  of  heaven.  The  good  of  the  intellect  is 
to  see  God  in  the  events  of  individual  life  and 
history ;  the  good  of  the  heart  is  to  reahze  His 
comforting  presence  in  all  sorrow ;  the  good  of 
the  will  is  to  feel  His  strengthening  power  in 
every  temptation. 

1  Inf.  iii.  16-18. 


98  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

Hell,  both  here  and  hereafter,  is  blindness  to 
^  the  presence  of  God  in  His  world.  It  is  to  be 
unable  to  see  reason  in  the  trials  of  life,  justice 
in  its  penalties,  and  righteousness  in  the  founda- 
tions of  the  social  structure.  It  is  to  be  con- 
vinced that  nature  is  soulless,  the  heart  comfort- 
less, life  worthless,  and  the  will  powerless  amid 
forces  whose  cruel  interactions  represent  nothing 
but  a  high  carnival  of  unreason.  This  practical 
atheism  is  the  world's  Inferno.  It  is  the  gloom 
and  horror  of  the  soul ;  not  a  place  so  much  as  a 
condition  of  life.  "  All  hope  abandon,  ye  who 
enter  here,"  is  a  warning  both  for  individuals 
and  nations.  It  is  a  condition  first  of  mental 
darkness ;  then  of  lawless,  fiery  passion  ;  ending 
in  useless  weeping,  paralyzed  despair,  and  be- 
numbed wretchedness. 

Sin  is  a  bondage.  Whoever  committeth  it  is 
first  its  servant  and  then  its  bond-slave.  When 
Y  one  enters  it  he  puts  himself  into  a  dungeon  from 
which  there  is  no  escape  without  divine  aid. 
Francesca  cannot  fly  from  the  never-resting 
blast ;  Filippo  Argenti  cannot  extricate  himself 
from  the  muddy  river  of  wrath ;  the  hypocrite  is 
powerless  to  lay  aside  his  leaden  cloak ;  the  ice 
does  not  give  up  its  dead,  nor  Satan  free  his 
victims.  Sin  is  forever  a  tyranny,  a  weight,  a 
chain.  Hence  Dante,  with  a  keener  insight  than 
that  of  the  Greek  poets,  places  no  Cerberus  at 
the  mouth  of  Hell.      The  gravitation  of  evil  is 


DANTE'S  CONCEPTION   OF  SIN  99 

downward  toward  a  deeper  death.  The  Holy 
City  in  the  Apocalypse  suffers  no  violence,  though 
its  gates  are  unguarded  and  no  visible  barrier 
keeps  out  the  dogs  and  sorcerers  and  fornica- 
tors. The  gates  of  Heaven  can  be  left  open 
toward  sin,  and  no  vile  person  will  enter  in 
thereat.  The  way  to  purity,  truth,  holiness  is 
always  accessible ;  yet  the  impure,  the  false, 
and  the  treacherous  need  no  barking  Cerberus 
to  keep  them  from  thronging  the  entrance  to  a 
better  life.  They  keep  themselves  in  the  land 
of  evil. 

How  steady  and  tremendous  is  this  downward 

y  pressure  of  sin  Dante  further  intimates  in  his 
graphic  description  of  the  great  toil  with  which 
he  and  Virgil  emerged  from  the  hemisphere  of 
darkness  into  that  of  light.  Lucifer  was  at  the 
centre  of  the  earth.  It  was  necessary  to  go  by 
him  and  take  the  passage  to  the  other  side  of  the 
world.  To  cross  the  centre  of  gravity,  and  pass 
from  the  attraction  of  sin  to  the  attraction  of 
God  required  a  mighty  effort.  "  When  we  were 
where  the  thio'h  turns  on  the  thick  of  the  haunch 
(the  body  of  Lucifer  was  in  one  hemisphere,  his 
legs  in  the  other,  and  his  middle  at  the  centre  of 
the  earth)  my  Leader,  with  effort  and  stress  of 
breath,  turned  his  head  where  he  had  his  shanks, 
and  clambered  by  the  hair  as  a  man  that  ascends, 

-^  so  that  I  thought  to  return  again  to  Hell.  ^  Cling 
fast   hold/  said   the  Master,  panting   like   one 


Cn'^ 


100  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

weary,  '  for  by  such  stairs  it  behooves  to  depart 
from  so  much  evil.'  "  ^ 

Sin  is  unreasonable.  After  he  has  once  passed 
into  the  gloom  of  the  pit  the  poet  carefully  re- 
frains from  speaking  the  name  of  Yirgil.  One 
can  give  no  valid  reason  for  sinning,  though  he 
may  deck  the  deed  with  fair  excuses. 

But  while  sin  is  the  abnegation  of  reason,  it 
still  yields  to  human  wisdom  a  cringing  obedi- 
^  ence.  The  power  and  the  hmitations  of  a  reason- 
able man  surrounded  by  sin  is  an  interesting 
study.  The  wise  man  can  make  an  angry  one 
both  furious  and  consequently  powerless,  as 
Virgil  did  Minotaur  by  his  taunts  ;  ^  he  can  make 
fraud  his  servant,^  can  rebuke  its  demons  ;  *  and 
if  some  maliofn  Medusa  would  harden  his  heart 
he  can  turn  away  his  eyes.^  There  is  one  thing, 
however,  that  reason  cannot  do,  —  it  cannot  per- 
suade a  perverted  and  violent  will.^  Its  unaided 
words  are  futile  in  the  presence  of  headstrong 
maliciousness.  This  only  the  grace  of  God  can 
overcome. 

Dante  was  certainly  no  believer  in  the  popular 
modern  teaching  that  the  rejection  of  God  ulti- 
mates  in  the  annihilation  of  the  wicked.  Sin 
demonizes  but  does  not  destroy  the  strength  of 
the  will.  This  is  taught  in  many  lurid  pictures. 
When  Farinata   rose    in  his  burning    sepulchre 

1  Inf.  xxxiv.  76-84.     ^  jnf  xii.  16-25.      «  Inf.  xvii.  91-99. 
*  Inf.  vii.  8-12.  ^  Inf.  ix.  55-63.       «  Inf.  viii.  115  fP. 


DANTE'S  CONCEPTION  OF  SIN  101 


and  ^^  straightened  himself  up  with  breast  and 
front  as  though  he  held  Hell  in  great  scorn/' 
and  in  his  disdainful  patrician  pride  first  asked 
the  poet,  "  who  were  thy  ancestors  ? "  ere  he 
entered  into  conversation,  he  certainly  showed 
no  abatement  in  the  force  of  his  imperious  will.^ 
In  this  Dante  agrees  with  Shakespeare  and 
Milton.  Villainy  did  not  weaken  the  intellec- 
tual cunning  of  lago  nor  cripple  the  rebellious 
will  of  Satan. 
/  ^  It  is  also  suggestive  that  Dante  represents  the 
^^i^V^lost  as  punished  for  but  one  sin.  The  evil-doer 
^  may  have  broken  every  commandment,  and  been 
adept  in  all  villainies  ;  but  he  is  punished  for 
only  one  offense.  He  remains  in  one  circle,  and 
there  is  no  hint  that  he  passes  to  any  other. 
Punishment  is  for  a  sing^le  root  sin  out  of  which 
all  others  have  grown.  The  inevitable  tendency 
is  for  a  man  to  give  himself  over  to  one  beset- 
ting passion  and  to  become  absorbed  in  it  and 
dominated  by  it,  while  right  living  expands  all 
the  faculties,  enlarging  and  enriching  the  whole 
nature.  Bad  men  grow  intense  in  certain  fac- 
ulties. Their  strino^ent  selfishness  binds  them 
down  to  littleness.  They  grow  imperious,  jealous, 
petulant.  However  great  and  dazzhng  their 
achievements  may  appear,  in  the  midst  of  their 
conquered  worlds,  they  are  continually  tapering 
down  to  be  sharp,  brilliant,  little  men.     This  is 

1  Inf.  X.  31  fe. 


102  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

the  popular  conception  of  a  fiend  —  one  whose 
energies  burn  hot  at  a  single  point,  who  is  the 
slave  of  one  devilish  passion,  —  sin's  final  issue 
as  Dante  paints  it.  The  gravitation  of  a  lost 
soul  is  toward  a  single  demonized  activity. 

One  of  the  most  striking  features  of  the 
Inferno  is  the  total  absence  of  the  feelino;  of 
remorse  within  its  caverns.  Accordino^  to  the 
common  conception  the  pain  of  Hell  is  the  agony 
of  conscious  guilt.  This  is  the  worm  that  dieth 
not  and  the  fire  that  is  not  quenched.  Nowhere 
does  Shakespeare  disclose  a  more  lurid  magnifi- 
cence of  power  than  in  his  delineation  of  the 
pangs  of  an  outraged  conscience.  His  villains 
are  steeped  in  no  deeper  Hell,  and  apparently  he 
conceived  of  no  retribution  more  inevitable  and 
dire  than  the  scouro'incrs  of  an  aroused  moral 
sense.  No  sooner  does  Macbeth  commit  his 
atrocious  outrao^e  than  he  hears  the  callins:  of  a 
voice,  the  air  is  filled  with  clutching  hands,  the 
blood-spot  is  on  his  palm,  and  the  "  Amen  "  sticks 
in  his  throat.  King  Richard's  Inferno  flamed 
with  remorse  :  — 

"  My  conscience  hath  a  thousand  several  tongues, 
And  every  tongue  brings  in  a  several  tale, 
And  every  tale  condemns  me  for  a  villain."  ^ 

All  his  crimes,  threatening  dreadful  vengeance, 
thronged  the  chambers  of  his  soul,  and  filled  him 
with  despair. 

1  Richard  Illy  V.  iii. 


DANTE'S  CONCEPTION  OF  SIN  103 

Byron  draws  a  vivid  picture  o£  the  souFs 
fiercest  torment,  when  he  likens  it  to  the  writh- 
ings  of  a  scorpion  girt  by  fire,  who  to  end  her 
pain  strikes  into  her  brain  her  own  venom.^ 

The  smiting  wrath  of  an  outraged  conscience 
is  the  deepest  Hell  into  which  most  of  our  great 
poets  and  prophets  penetrate. 

All  the  more  remarkable  is  it  that  from  the 
gloom  and  agony  and  chill  of  Dante's  Inferno 
there  comes  up  not  one  cry  of  remorse  ;  not  a 
sinofle  soul  feels  the  ranklina*  of  conscience  or  the 
sting  of  guilt.  Not  until  the  summit  of  Purgatory 
is  reached  and  it  confronts  Beatrice  does  the  soul 
feel  a  shrinking  horror  of  itself.  It  is  her  pre- 
sence that  causes  the  writhing:  of  £:uilt  and  the 
torment  of  an  embittered  memory.  Only  the 
light  of  God  can  quicken  conscience  unto  life, 
and  when  the  soul  feels  the  searching  of  this 
clear  light  it  is  not  in  the  blackest  gloom  of  Hell, 
but  just  outside  the  gates  of  Heaven. 

In  placing  remorse  upon  the  top  of  the  moun- 
tain rather  than  at  the  bottom  of  the  pit,  the 
poet  is  strictly  true  to  his  philosophy.  The  soul 
enters  the  hopeless  shadow  of  spiritual  death 
when  it  loses  the  good  of  the  understanding. 
The  ultimate  penalty  of  sin  is  to  be  deprived  of 
the  consciousness  of  God.  Heaven  is  to  know 
God  and  dwell  in  Him :  Hell  is  to  know  sin  and 
abide  in  it.     But  remorse  implies  a  flaming  reali- 

^  The  Giaour. 


104  THE   TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

zation  of  the  divine.  It  is  the  feeling  aroused 
when  the  sin-stained  memory  faces  an  over- 
powering revelation  of  the  Eternal  Majesty.  Its 
pangs,  therefore,  are  always  felt  in  the  presence 
of  Beatrice  and  not  in  the  grisly  horror  of  the 
under-world.  There  is  hope  for  one  who  is 
startled  by  the  voice  of  God,  and  trembles  before 
the  intolerable  glare  of  His  revelation.  He  has 
not  yet  reached  that  state  where  hope  never 
comes  because  the  voice  of  God  is  stilled  in  the 
soul  and  the  darkness  is  undisturbed  by  the 
light  of  His  presence. 

Milton  in  the  general  scheme  of  his  thought 
upon  this  subject  concurs  with  Dante  ;  although 
his  descriptions  of  Hell  in  the  soul  place  him  with 
Shakespeare  and  Byron.  When  Satan  first 
alights  upon  the  untempted  earth  his  tumultuous 
breast  boils  with  doubt  and  horror. 

"  Now  conscience  wakes  despair 
That  slumbered,  wakes  the  bitter  memory 
Of  what  he  was,  what  is,  and  what  must  be," — 

and  from  the  bottom  stirs  the  Hell  within  him. 
Remorse  assails  him  for  his  rebellion  against 
heaven's  matchless  King,  and  he  exclaims,  — 

"  AVhich  way  I  fly  is  Hell  ;  myself  am  Hell  ; " 

SO  near  he  comes  to  the  verge  of  relenting  and 
of  submitting  to  the  Omnipotent.  Never  again 
was  he  so  near  Heaven  as  in  that  moment  of 
aroused  conscience.  What  he  called  the  Hell 
within  him  but  bespoke  a  chance  of  Heaven. 


/ 


DANTE'S  CONCEPTION   OF  SIN  105 

But  when  he  said,  — 

"Farewell,  remorse  :  all  good  to  me  is  lost; 
Evil,  be  thou  my  good,"  — 

he  entered  the  hopeless  land,  the  region  Dante 
calls  Hell.^  Jean  Valjean  was  in  his  Inferno 
when  he  left  the  galleys  with  his  mind  hot  with 
the  fire  of  a  malio^nant  hatred  :  in  the  face  of  the 
good  bishop  he  saw  his  degradation  and  wept 
scalding  tears.  His  remorse  was  suffered  at  the 
entrance  of  a  holy  life. 

Hell  is  not  the  anarchy  and  chaos  of  the  soul, 
as  we  usually  conceive,  when  light  and  darkness, 
good  and  evil,  are  mingled  in  desperate  battle ; 
it  is  ordered  death,  when  the  conflict  has  ceased 
and  the  spirit  dwells  wholly  in  the  domain  of 
evil. 

The  vision  of  Sin  is  not  a  fiction,  created  to 
delight  or  terrify.  Neither  is  it  a  nightmare 
dream  of  horror,  born  in  an  age  of  superstition, 
and  fated  to  pass  away  with  the  creed  that  gave 
it  birth.  It  is  sober  reality.  We  have  all  beheld 
in  a  lesser  deo^ree  what  Dante  saw  with  his  keener 
sight.  We,  too,  have  seen  the  unstable  blown 
about  "  like  the  sand  when  the  whirlwind 
breathes,"  stung  by  the  pestering  gad-flies  and 
wasps  of  petty  passion  and  annoyances.  We 
have  seen  "  people  of  much  worth  "  carry  intel- 
lectual culture  to  its  highest  point,  yet,  lacking 
Christian  faith,  live  without  hope  in  a  limbo 
where  "  sighs  made  the  eternal  air  to  tremble." 
1  Par.  Lost,  bk.  iv.  1-110. 


106  THE  TEACHINGS  OF   DANTE 

We  have  seen  the  slaves  of  anger  with  look  of 
hurt  smiting  one  another  as  they  stand  in  the 
foul  fen  of  the  river  of  hate.  We  have  seen 
the  violent  shut  the  gates  of  the  city  of  Dis  in 
the  face  of  Reason,  hut  open  them  at  the  touch 
of  some  heavenly  messenger  of  grace.  We  have 
seen  flatterers  wallowing  in  their  own  filth  ;  and 
many  an  Alherigo  wdiose  body  lives,  hut  whose 
soul  is  shrouded  in  icy  death.  All  these  woes 
and  many  more  have  we  seen  in  our  own  experi- 
ence, and  perhaps  we  have  felt  them  too ;  for  who 
is  he  who  has  never  put  his  feet  into,  the  ways  of 
death,  and  walked  in  the  paths  of  darkness  and  of 
fire  ?  Happy  have  we  been  if  Reason  has  led  us 
out  of  sin  to  behold  "  those  beauteous  things  which 
heaven  bears,"  and  we  have  come  forth  to  see 
again  the  stars,  and  have  humbly  washed  the 
grime  from  off  our  faces  in  the  dews  of  repent- 
ance. We  have  all  had  our  visions  of  sin,  but 
it  was  reserved  for  one  rare  and  solitary  spirit, 
exiled  from  his  beloved  city,  stripped  of  all  dead- 
ening luxuries,  kept  by  dolorous  poverty  near 
to  the  deep  heart  of  reality,  to  have  his  sight  so 
clarified  by  years  of  study,  of  wandering,  and  of 
bitter  disappointment  that  he  could  comprehend 
the  sin  of  the  world  in  all  its  dark  horror,  its 
fiery  lawlessness,  its  cold  monstrosity,  and  then 
with  almost  superhuman  genius  set  forth  the 
vision,  burned  upon  his  brain,  in  a  picture  so 
lurid  and  darkly  magnificent  that  it  never  could 
fade  from  the  thought  of  man. 


THE  QUEST  OF  LIBERTY 


"  And  to  his  dignity  he  never  returns,  unless,  where  sin  makes 
void,  he  fill  up  for  evil  pleasures  with  just  penalties."  —  Dante. 

"  I  do  not  believe  that  it  would  be  possible  to  find  any  joy  com- 
parable to  that  of  a  soul  in  Purgatory,  except  the  joy  of  the 
blessed  in  Paradise ;  a  joy  which  goes  on  increasing  from  day  to 
day  as  God  flows  in  more  and  more  upon  the  soul.  .  .  .  On  the 
other  hand  they  suffer  pains  so  great  that  no  tongue  can  describe 
them."  —  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa. 


THE    VITALITY    OF    THE     "  PURGATORIO  " 

Dean  Stanley,  fresh  from  the  study  of  the 
^'  Divine  Comedy,"  declared  in  his  enthusiasm  that 
the  "  Puro^atorio  "  was  "  the  most  reHofious  book 
he  had  ever  read."  While  it  lacks  the  dramatic 
force  and  the  vivid  coloring  of  the  "  Inferno,"  and 
comes  short  of  the  blazin^^  g-lories  and  the  heiofhts 
of  vision  of  the  "  Paradiso,"it  still  touches  life  as 
we  know  it  more  intimately  than  either  of  the 
other  portions  of  this  strange  mediaeval  poem. 
The  poet  describes  those  things  which  we  know 
in  our  own  experience.  We  are  familiar  with  the 
trembling  of  the  sea,  the  silent  splendor  of  the 
stars,  the  burdensome  weight  of  pride,  the  harsh 
irritation  of  envy,  and  the  blinding  smoke  of 
wrath.  The  characters  are  neither  demons  nor 
glorified  beings,  but  human  spirits  who  are  being 
made  perfect  through  suffering.  Our  own  dis- 
ciplines are  here  portrayed,  and  the  resistless 
power  of  the  book  lies  in  its  penetrating  insight 
into  the  struggles  of  the  soul  and  the  forces  by 
which  it  wins  its  liberty. 

It  is,  perhaps,  the  most  autobiographical  of 


no  THE  TEACHINGS   OF  DANTE 

the  trilogy,  although  it  is  in  the  "  Paradiso  "  that 
the  rare  sweetness  of  Dante's  spirit  and  the 
strength  o£  his  moral  indignation  find  their  high- 
est expression.  When  we  see  him  bending  low 
among  the  proud,  as  if  already  the  load  weighed 
grievously  upon  him,  we  know  it  to  be  a  confes- 
sion of  his  besettino^  sin.  He  acknowled<2:es  his 
imperious  temper  by  suffering  from  the  acridity 
of  the  smoke,  black  as  the  gloom  of  Hell.  He 
confesses  that  he  cannot  see  the  beautiful  eyes  of 
Beatrice  until  he  has  plunged  into  the  fierce  fires 
that  cleanse  the  soul  of  lust.  There  are  delicate 
touches  wdiich  reveal  that  he  had  St.  Francis's 
love  for  birds,  and  an  artist's  delight  in  natural 
beauty ;  while  music  such  as  he  must  have  heard 
in  the  old  churches  when  he  went  to  worship, 
and  which  rested  like  a  benediction  on  his 
hot  and  wounded  spirit,  is  constantly  stealing 
into  his  song  as  a  potent  healing.  Here  Dante 
is  seen  to  be  a  man  —  unlike  the  stern  and 
gloomy  poet  of  popular  conception  —  of  noble 
tranquillity,  delicately  sensitive  to  all  the  finer 
impressions  of  beauty. 

Marvelous  it  is  how  the  dream  of  one  steeped 
in  mediaeval  lore  has  survived  the  lapse  of  centu- 
ries. The  huofe  tomes  of  the  master-minds  over 
w^liich  he  pored  with  such  eager  interest  lie  neg- 
lected on  the  shelves,  or  are  translated  merely 
to  interpret  his  weird  and  mystic  poem ;  but  the 
weighty  truths  they  held,  sinking  into  the  pas- 


THE  VITALITY  OF  THE   "PURGATORIO"    111 

sionate  heart  of  this  incomprehensible  man,  and 
distilled  in  the  alembic  of  his  fiery  sufferings  with 
his  own  life's  blood,  became  instinct  with  peren- 
nial vigor.  Carlyle  calls  Dante  "  the  voice  of 
ten  silent  centuries."  Those  ages  may  have  been 
dumb,  awaiting  their  interpreter,  but  their  heart 
was  hot,  passion-swept,  fermenting  with  intense 
aspirations,  and  he  who  could  comprehend  and 
utter  the  deep  things  of  its  spirit  must  speak 
words  which  the  world  will  always  gladly  hear. 
Deep  ever  calls  to  deep.  Heine  has  said  that  every 
age  is  a  sphinx  that  plunges  into  the  abyss  after 
it  has  solved  its  problem.  Dante  heard  the  secret 
of  the  Middle  Ages  from  the  lips  of  the  mighty 
creature  ere  it  leaped  into  the  dark  below.  What 
he  heard  he  told,  and  his  message  is  of  enduring 
interest  because  it  is  the  breaking  into  song  of 
the  deepest  life  of  a  great  epoch.  Certainly  the 
conception  of  religion  held  in  the  most  distinc- 
tively religious  centuries  in  history,  the  centuries 
that  built  the  cathedrals  and  produced  spiritual 
geniuses  of  enduring  lustre  and  power,  cannot 
be  unattractive.  The  soul  changes  not,  neither 
do  the  powers  which  ransom  it. 

The  book  is  vital,  because  life  is  purgatorial. 
Dante  asks  a  question  old  as  the  race  and  deep 
as  the  human  heart :  How  can  a  man  be  freed 
from  his  sin?  He  answers  it,  too,  in  the  way 
earnest  and  clear-seeing  minds  have  often  an- 
swered it.    This  grim  and  saturnine  poet  does  not 


112  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

use  the  same  terms  which  our  modern  thinkers 
employ,  but  he  felt  the  steady  pressure  of  the 
same  sins,  and  he  laid  hold  substantially  of  the 
same  sovereign  remedies.  He  placed  more  em- 
phasis on  the  human  side  of  the  problem  than 
yve,  and  for  this  reason  he  deserves  attentive 
study,  ha\4ng  portrayed  most  powerfully  some 
truths  which  our  age,  so  eager  to  break  with  the 
narrowness  of  the  past,  has  overlooked  in  its 
haste.  We  sometimes  call  the  Middle  Ages  dark, 
but  he  whose  spirit  brooded  over  its  tumultuous 
and  valorous  life  until  he  became  its  prophet  can 
turn  rays  of  the  clearest  light  upon  many  of  our 
unsolved  enio:mas. 


n 

THE    RETURN    TO    EDEN 

The  main  purpose  of  the  "  Purgatorio  "  is  to 
point  out  the  way  to  achieve  the  primal  virtue 
which  was  lost  in  Eden  :  it  is  to  teach  us  how  to 
repair  the  havoc  wrought  by  sin,  and  to  return  to 
the  estate  surrendered  by  the  Fall.  The  master- 
minds of  the  early  Church  pondered  much  on  how 
a  man  can  become  what  Adam  was,  pure,  happy, 
free ;  how  efface  the  guilt,  the  power,  the  stain  of 
sin,  and  restore  the  individual  to  the  Edenic  liberty. 
They  solved  the  problem  by  the  doctrines  of  Bap- 
tism, Penance,  and  Purgatory.  Baptism  washed 
away  the  guilt  of  original  sin,  saved  the  indi- 
vidual from  its  eternal  consequences,  and  made 
him  a  recipient  of  divine  grace.  The  sins  com- 
mitted after  baptism  are  expiated  and  purged  by 
the  sacrament  of  Penance,  the  integral  parts  of 
which  are  confession,  contrition,  and  satisfaction, 
the  form  being  the  absolution  pronounced  by  the 
priest.  This  "  satisfactory  punishment  both  heals 
the  relicts  of  sin,  and  destroys  the  vicious  habits 
acquired  by  an  evil  life,  by  contrary  acts  of  vir- 
tue."    But  life  is  short  and  men  die  before  the 


114  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

footprints  of  evil  are  rubbed  out.  They  are  not 
fit  for  Heaven,  they  are  not  subjects  of  Hell ; 
there  must,  therefore,  be  an  intermediate  state 
where  they  are  cleansed  from  all  unrighteousness. 
In  Purgatory  retributive  sufferings  are  designed 
both  to  satisfy  a  violated  moral  order  and  to  be- 
come remedial  toward  the  sufferer.  Yet  the  sin- 
ner need  not  bear  the  full  recoil  upon  himself. 
Intercessory  prayers  and  deeds  of  love  on  the 
part  of  others  take  the  place  of  punishment  with- 
out weakening  justice,  for  one  act  of  love  is 
dearer  to  God  than  years  of  penalty.  This  pur- 
gatorial process  not  only  completely  cleanses  the 
soul ;  it  restores  it  to  its  normal  vigor  by  reviving 
all  the  good  which  sin  had  weakened  or  defaced. 
Dante  accepted  these  teachings  of  the  Church, 
heart  and  soul,  and  they  are  the  architectonic 
principles  of  his  wondrous  poem. 


Ill 

THE     HOLY     MOUNTAIN 

The  form  and  location  of  Purgatory  appear  to 
have  been  the  poet's  own  invention.  When  Lu- 
cifer was  hurled  from  heaven  the  soil  which  fled 
dismayed  as  he  struck  this  planet  was  piled  up 
on  the  other  side  of  the  globe  in  the  form  of  a 
mountain,  flat  upon  the  top,  and  lying  opposite 
to  Jerusalem  in  the  hemisphere  of  water.  This 
mountain  is  di\dded  into  three  sections.  The 
first  is  Ante-Purgatory,  where  are  found  those 
who  died  in  contumacy  of  the  Church,  and  the 
negligent  who  either  put  off  repentance  till  the 
end  of  life,  or  were  cut  off  by  violent  death  while 
presuming  upon  a  long  existence,  or  failed  to 
fulfill  the  highest  mission  to  which  they  were 
called. 

Above  this  and  separated  from  it  by  a  steep 
cliff  is  Purgatory  proper,  with  its  seven  ledges,  on 
each  of  which  is  purged  one  of  the  seven  mortal 
sins  of  the  Church. 

Upon  the  flat  summit  of  the  mountain  is 
located  the  ancient  garden  of  Eden,  the  Earthly 
Paradise,  typifying  the  highest  temporal  happi- 


116  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

ness.  Here  Dante  meets  Beatrice,  comes  to 
a  profound  consciousness  of  bis  sin  of  unfaith- 
fulness to  her  and  to  God,  sees  in  splendid 
apocalyptic  vision  the  history  of  the  Church  in 
its  relation  to  the  Empire,  and  is  washed  in 
Lethe  and  Eunoe,  thus  purging  his  memory  and 
restorino^  his  soul  to  full  visfor. 

In  passing  into  the  "  Purgatorio  "  out  of  the 
"  Inferno  "  one  draws  a  sio:h  of  immense  relief. 
It  is  leaving  a  dungeon  of  sulphurous  gloom 
and  deadly  cold  for  the  sweet  morning  light,  the 
sparkling  sea,  the  blue  sky,  and  infinite  hope. 
It  is  a  proof  of  the  good  sense  of  Dante  that  he 
rejected  the  vulgar  conception  of  his  time  that 
Purgatory  was  a  place  of  fire  separated  from  Hell 
only  by  a  partition  wall,  and  refused  to  believe 
even  with  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Bonaventura 
that  its  purifying  flames  were  material.  He  an- 
ticipated the  modern  philanthropist  in  teaching 
that  the  soul  is  best  saved  in  an  atmosphere 
charged  with  hope.  It  must  leave  the  filth,  the 
lurid  darkness,  the  chill  despair  of  the  infernal 
valley,  and  dwell  in  a  land  where  the  stars  shine 
and  the  sun  makes  all  the  Orient  to  smile,  where 
art  and  music  and  flowers  minister  to  man's 
higher  needs,  and  where  visions  of  coming  bless- 
edness never  fade.  His  Purgatory  is  not  a  place 
of  fiery  horror,  but  a  privilege  for  which  to  pray. 


IV 

TRUTHS  TAUGHT  IN  ANTE-PURGATORY 

Before  the  lustral  discipline  begins  Dante 
teaches  some  wholesome  truths  in  Ante-Purga- 
tory. When  he  sought  to  chmb  the  sunlit 
mountain,  described  in  the  opening  pages  of  the 
''  Inferno/'  his  disposition  was  one  of  belligerent 
self-assertion.  This  proved  ineffective  against 
the  lion,  the  leopard,  and  the  wolf.  Having 
learned  by  sad  experience,  he  essays  to  ascend 
this  second  mountain  in  an  entirely  different 
mood.  Following  Virgil  to  a  shady  spot  where 
the  dew  still  lingered,  he  stretched  toward  his 
teacher  his  tear-stained  face  that  the  grime  which 
had  gathered,  simply  from  being  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  Hell,  might  be  washed  away  by  the  dew 
of  repentance,  and  submitted  to  be  girded  with  a 
reed,  type  of  humility,  for  it  is  by  self-surrender 
to  higher  powers  that  spiritual  liberty  is  won. 

Moreover,  there  must  be  an  insistent  p'urpose. 
One  cannot  even  ling-er  to  hear  Casella  sinof 
one's  own  sweet  songs,  but  must  be  given  wholly 
to  the  task  of  salvation.  On  the  way  of  life 
one  must  not  loiter.     Our  grim  poet  might  have 


118  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

sympathized  with  the  severe  resolution  Jonathan 
Edwards  made  upon  his  twenty-first  birthday : 
"  I  will  make  the  salvation  of  my  soul  my  life- 
work." 

Keason,  which  is  amply  able  to  make  known 
the  nature  and  consequence  of  sin,  is  not  always 
sufficient  to  lead  the  way  to  liberty.  Virgil  needs 
continually  to  inquire  the  path,  gladly  accepting 
the  guidance  of  Sordello  in  Ante-Purgatory,  of 
Statins  in  Purgatory,  and  resigning  his  charge 
to  Matilda  in  the  Terrestrial  Paradise.  Dante 
evidently  believed  that  the  poets  are  our  best 
instructors  in  the  ways  of  liberty  and  happiness, 
for  he  accepts  the  leadership  of  three  poets  up 
the  holy  mount. 

Here  is  taught  again  the  truth  so  vigorously 
declared  in  the  "  Inferno,"  that  men  are  punished 
in  the  respect  they  sin.  The  negligent  are  neg- 
lected as  many  years  as  they  delayed  repentance, 
and  the  contumacious  reap  thirty-fold  from  the 
seed  they  sowed. 


THE    WAY    A    SOUL     IS     CLEANSED 

Lifted  by  the  divine  grace  over  a  steep  he 
could  not  well  scale,  Dante  is  now  ready  to  climb 
the  Mount  of  Purification.     How  shall  his  sins 
be  purged  away  ?     It  is    assumed    that  having 
been  baptized  he  is  freed  from  the  penalties  of 
inherited  guilt.     From  the  power  and  stain  of 
personal  sin  he  is  to  be  cleansed  by  a  thorough 
application  of    the   sacrament  of  penance.     He 
must  be  contrite,  he  must  confess  his  sins,  h 
must  render  complete  satisfaction,  and  he  mus 
be  absolved.     The  process  by  which  a  soul  be- 
comes purified  from  personal  sin  is  most  exqui- 
sitely put  in  miniature/'  in  Canto  ix!.     Follomng  t 
Virtril  he  moves  to  a  chff  which  rises  sheer  before 
him,  where  in  a  rift,  he  says,  "  I  saw  a  gate,  and 
three  steps  beneath  for    going  to    it  of    divers 
colors,  and  a  gate-keeper  who  as  yet  said  not  a 
Tvord.  .  .  .  Thither  we  came  to  the  first  great 
stair ;  it  was  of    white  marble   so  polished  and 
smooth  that  I  mirrored  myself  in  it  as  I  appear.\|^ 
The  second,  of  deeper  hue  than  perse,  was  of 
a  rough  and  scorched  stone,  cracked  lengthwise 


120  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

and  athwart.  The  third,  which  above  lies  massy, 
seemed  to  me  of  porphyry  as  flaming  red  as  blood 
that  spirts  forth  from  a  vein.  Upon  this  the 
Angel  of  God  held  both  his  feet,  seated  upon  the 
threshold  that  seemed  to  me  stone  of  adamant. 
Up  over  the  three  steps  my  Leader  drew  me  with 
good  will,  saying,  ^  Beg  humbly  that  he  undo 
the  lock.'  Devoutly  I  threw  myself  at  the  holy 
feet ;  I  besought  for  mercy's  sake  that  he  would 
open  for  me  ;  but  first  upon  my  breast  I  struck 
three  times.  Seven  P's  upon  my  forehead  hel 
inscribed  with  the  point  of  his  sword,  and  '  See  / 
that  thou  wash  these  wounds  when  thou  art 
within,'  he  said." 

The  three  stairs  are  the  three  steps  one  must 
take  in  penance,  namely,  confession,  contrition, 
and  satisfaction.  The  angel  is  the  type  of  the 
priest  who  administers  absolution.  The  breast 
is  struck  three  times  to  denote  sincere  repentance 
for  sins  of  thought,  of  word,  of  deed.  The  seven 
P's  —  Peccata  —  signify  the  seven  mortal  sins 
wdiich  must  be  purged  away.  They  are  not  evil 
deeds,  but  the  bad  dispositions  out  of  which  all 
sin  springs  ;  it  is  what  we  are,  as  well  as  what 
we  do,  that  makes  us  sinners  in  the  sight  of  God. 
It  is  exceedingly  significant  that  all  of  the  P's 
were  incised  on  Dante's  forehead.  He  may  not  ! 
have  been  guilty  of  every  kind  of  sin ;  but  in  j 
him  were  the  potentialities  of  all,  and  he  has  '; 
come  to  a  full  consciousness  of  them.     He  now 


THE  WAY  A  SOUL  IS  CLEANSED  121 

passes  within  the  gate,  the  symbol  of  justification, 
and  the  healing  process  begins.  Having  been 
justified,  he  is  no  longer  the  servant  of  his  evil 
dispositions,  but  their  stain  is  still  on  his  soul 
and  their  power  is  not  all  gone.  A  noble  type 
of  humanity  is  this  sombre  figure,  as  with  the 
seven  scars  of  sin  on  his  forehead  he  begins  to  | 
climb  the  rugged  and  toilsome  mountain  in  quest 
of  liberty  !  The  first  note  he  hears  is  "  Te  Deum 
laudamus,"  chanted  by  sweet  voices,  for  there  is 
joy  among  the  angels  over  one  sinner  that  re- 
penteth.  The  Catholic  Church  has  enumerated 
seven  evil  dispositions  w^hich  exclude  God  from 
the  life  and  thus  deliver  man  unto  death.  They 
are; pride,  envy,  anger,  sloth,  avarice,  gluttony, 
and  lust.  Upon  each  of  the  seven  ledges  of  the 
purgatorial  mountain  the  scum  of  one  of  these 
mortal  sins  is  dissolved  from  off  the  conscience, 
and  the.  lustre  of  grace  and  reason  is  restored 
by  enduring  the  sacrament  of  penance.) 

Two  thoughts  occupied  the  mind  of  this  singer 
of  eternal  truth  as  he  drew  his  pictures  of  the 
soul's  experience  upon  each  of  the  ledges.  One 
was  to  reveal  the  nature  of  the  evil  disposition  J 
and  its  effect  on  the  individual  spirit ;  the  other 
was  to  describe  the  means  by  which  the  evil  dis- 
position could  be  changed  and  virtue  restored. 
This  makes  the  characterization  of  sin  in  the 
"  Purgatorio  "  differ  widely  from  that  of  the 
"  Inferno."  In  the  latter  the  aim  was  to  show  sin 


122  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

in  its  true  nature,  to  reveal  in  form  and  color  and 
action  its  essential  liideousness.  In  the  "  Puro^a- 
torio "  the  poet  puts  forth  the  wealth  of  his 
genius  in  painting  the  effect  of  sin  on  the  soul. 
He  portrays  the  disposition,  and  not  the  deed ; 
sin  in  its  stain,  and  not  in  action.  With  fervi^ 
intensity  this  vivid  prophet  sought  to  make  en- 
durino:  in  the  thouo'ht  of  the  world  what  sin  is  in 
its  causes,  what  those  evil  dispositions  are  which 
shut  out  the  divine  ardor  from  raining  its  fire 
into  the  mind.  He  would  depict  the  atmosphere 
which  these  tempers  create  about  the  soul,  and 
the  results  they  make  inevitable.  x\mong  the 
woeful  people  he  taught  what  sin  is  when  given 
over  to  its  penalty  ;  on  the  Mount  of  Purgatory 
we  see  it  as  a  disease,  a  deformity,  a  discoloration 
of  the  soul.  Wrath  in  the  "  Inferno  "  is  described 
as  a  dismal  marsh,  through  which  flows  the  river 
of  hate,  and  the  punishment  is  to  be  given  over 
to  one's  rage ;  on  the  holy  mountain  wrath  is  a 
blinding  smoke,  black  as  night,  and  harsh  of 
tissue,  since  the  effect  of  anger  on  the  soul  is  to 
irritate  and  blind  it.  In  the  "  Inferno  "  gluttony 
is  filth,  and  the  glutton  wallows  in  the  mire ;  his 
god  is  his  belly,  and  his  punishment  is  to  serve 
his  god.  But  in  the  "  Purgatorio  "  gluttony  is' 
portrayed  as  striking  leanness  into  the  soul,  a 
"  dry  leprosy "  which  consumes,  but  does  uqIl' 
nourish. 

The  restoration  of  the  soul  to  its  primal  virtue 


THE  WAY  A  SOUL  IS  CLEANSED  123 

is  effected  through  the  sacrament  of  penance, 
consisting  of  contrition,  confession,  and  satisfac- 
tion^    Evil  being  in  the  disposition,  or  as  Dante 
affirms,  in  love,  excessive,  or  defective,  or  dis- 
torted, the  right  love  requires  for  its  creation 
the  clear  realization  of  truth.     After  truth  has 
begotten  pure  affections,  the  affections  become 
habits,  and  the  habits  character  by  constant  prac- 
tice.    "  There  are  two  things,"  says  Hugo  of  St. 
Victor,  "  which  repair  the  divine  likeness  in  man, 
the  beholding  of  truth  and  the  exercise  of  vir- 
tue."    This  relation   of  idea  and  will  is  in  ac- 
cordance with   our  new  psychology.     Professor 
C.  C.  Everett  in  unfolding  its  teaching  declares  : 
"  We  know  that  thought  tends  to  transform  itself 
into  deed.     If  we  had  in  mind  only  a  single  idea, 
and  this  represented  some  act,  the  act  would  at 
once  be  performed.     The  same  w^ould  be  true  if 
the  idea  of  the   act  were  sufficiently  intense  to 
overpower  all  inhibiting  ideas  that  might  be  pre- 
sent.    The  will  addresses  itself  not  to  acts  but 
to  thoudits.     It  holds  an  idea  before  the  mind 
until  the  idea  becomes  intense  enough  to  carry 
itself  into  activity."     Dante  employs  this  princi- 
pie  when  he  asserts  that  sins  of  habit  are  over- 
come  by  substituting  virtuous  habits,  and  sins  of  -/' 
temperament  by  good  thoughts,  created  by  the 
ardor  of  love  which  truth  sends  into  the   soid. 
,  To  be  free  the  sinful  soul  must  know  the  truth. 
The   proud    see  it  bodied  forth  in  the  visible 


124  THE  TEACHINGS   OF   DANTE 

language  of  sculpture  ;  the  envioas  learn  the 
nature  of  their  guilt  by  hearing  voices  proclaim 
the  worth  of  love  and  the  fell  results  of  env\' ; 
the  wrathful,  in  the  midst  of  their  blinding 
smoke,  behold  the  truth  in  vision ;  the  slothful 
shout  it  as  they  run  day  and  night. 

But  the  truth  must  not  only  be  known,  it  i 
must  be  wrouofht  into  habit  and  character.  The 
proud  purge  out  the  old  leaven  by  continuously 
exercising  a  humble  disposition ;  the  envious 
habitually  speak  well  of  others ;  the  slothful 
*'  fasten  upon  slothfulness  their  teeth  "  with  unre- 
mitting energy  ;  Pope  Martin  by  ''  fasting  purges 
the  eels  of  Bolsena  and  the  Yernaccia  wine ; " 
the  avaricious  ripen  their  good  will  by  gazing 
constantly  at  the  dust  to  which  their  souls  had 
cleaved,  piteously  praising  examples  of  poverty 
and  bounty,  and  lamenting  the  evils  of  the 
accursed  thirst  for  gold.  Our  Puritan  Dante, 
Jonathan  Edwards,  quaintly  prescribed  the  same 
medicine  :  "  Great  instances  of  mortification  are 
deep  wounds  given  to  the  body  of  sin  :  hard 
blows  which  make  him  staororer  and  reel.  We 
thereby  get  strong  ground  and  footing  against 
him,  he  is  weaker  ever  after,  and  we  have  easier 
work  with  him  next  time." 

The  activities    and  -sufferinors    of    Purofatorv^ 
Dante  represents  as  the  satisfaction  of  a  \'iolated 
moral  order,  and  as  purifying  to  the  penitent. 
Their  expiatory  character  is  nearly  always  defi- 


THE   WAT  A  SOUL  IS  CLEANSED  125 

nitelv  declared  in  words.  On  the  ledo^e  of  Pride 
this  is  stated  repeatedly  :  •*  And  here  must  I  bear 
this  weight  on  her  i  Pride's )  account  till  God  be 
satisfied."  "'of  such  pride  here  is  paid  the  fee/' 
"  such  money  doth  he  pay  in  satisfaction."  ^  The 
avaricious  he  prostrate ;  '•  So  long  as  it  shall  be 
the  pleasure  of  the  just  Lord,  so  long  shall  we  stay 
immovable  and  outstretched."  -  The  orluttonous 
'•  oro  loosinor  the  knot  of  their  debt."  ^  The  lust- 
ful  are  lq  the  flames  because  **  with  such  cure  it 
is  needful,  and  with  such  food,  that  the  last 
wound  of  all  should  be  closed  up."  ^  The  expia- 
tory penalties,  however,  are  not  vindictive  or 
arbitrary,  but  are  adjusted  to  the  purification  of 
the  sold.  While  they  are  a  satisfaction  rendered 
to  a  violated  moral  order  they  are  remedial  to  the 
penitent  by  confirming  him  in  right  habits  of 
thought  and  action.  Absolution  is  pronounced 
on  everv  •ledo:e  bv  the  act  of  the  angrel  removing: 
a  P.  from  the  poet's  forehead,  and  assurance  is 
made  complete  by  hearing  the  sweet  words  of  an 
appropriate  beatitude. 

Thus  accordins:  to  Dante  is  the  soul  cleansed 
from  the  guilt,  the  power,  the  stain  of  sin.  God 
in  Christ  has  made  an  atonement  for  the  guilt  of 
the  world,  which  man  appropriates  in  baptism. 
This  saves  him  from  eternal  condemnation.  The 
dread  power  is  broken  when  with  humble,  repent- 

1  Purg.  xi.  70.  71,  88,  liio.  *  Purg.  lix.  125,  126. 

»  Purg.  TTiii.  15.  *  Purg.  xiv.  138,  139. 


126  THE  TEACHINGS  OF   DANTE 

ant  mind  and  firm  purpose  the  sinner  stands  at  the 
door  of  the  Church  to  pray  for  pardon  and  heaUng 
grace.  He  has  been  born  into  a  new  world  where 
hope,  art,  music,  Hght,  right,  reason,  and  divine 
love  may  minister  to  him.  The  stain  is  washed 
away  when  through  penance,  thoroughly  applied, 
the  moral  law  has  been  satisfied  by  just  retribu-  \ 
tions,  which,  endured  in  a  penitential  spirit,  have  \ 
broken  down  the  bad  habits  by  substituting  good  j 
ones,  and  have  driven  out  the  evil  dispositions  by  I 
love  of  the  truth  as  seen  in  the  lives  of  the  good  | 
and  holy. 

From  the  besrinninof  to  the  end  of  this  toilsome 
cHmb  divine  grace  helps  the  weary  penitent  over 
the  hard  places,  and  guides  him  in  moments  of 
doubt,  until  at  last,  when  all  wounds  are  healed, 
the  whole  mountain  trembles  Avath  sympathetic 
joy,  and  the  enfranchised  spirit,  crowned  and 
mitred  over  himself,  roams  in  the  ancient  Para- 
dise in  all  "  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children 
of  God." 


VI 

<^  WHERE    THE    SENSE    OF   SIN    IS    KEENEST 

As  the  exulting  poet  T\'anders  at  ease  througb 
the  groves  of  Eden,  he  meets  her  who  had  mspiredT 
the  dream  of  his  youth,  commanded  all  his  maturer  i 
years,  and  was  to  him  the  revelation  and  the  power  I 
of  salvation,  BeatHce.     Virgil  does  not  linger  to 
attest  the  beautiful  eyes  that,  weeping,  had  sent 
him  on  his  arduous  journey,  for  divme  wisdom  is 
self -revealing  to  the  prepared  soul.      What  inde- 
scribable beauty  as  well  as  deep  religious  signifi- 
cance Dante  puts  into  this  account  of  their  meet- 
ing !     "  And  my  spirit  that  now  for  so  long  a'1 
time  had  not  been  broken  down,  trembling  with  : 
amazement  at  her  presence,  through  occult  virtue 
that  proceeded  from  her,  felt  the  great  potency 
of  ancient  love.  .   .  .  '  Dante,'  she  said, '  though 
Virgil  be  gone  away,  weep  not  yet,  weep  not  yet, 
for  it  behooves  thee  to  weep  by  another  sword.' 
.  .  .  Royally,  still  haughty  in  her  mien,  she  went 
on,  as  one  who  speaks,  and  keeps  back  his  warm- 
est speech  :   '  Look  at  me  well :  I  am,  indeed,  I 
am,  indeed,  Beatrice.     How  hast  thou  deigned  to 
approach  the  mountain  ?     Didst  thou  not  know 
that  man  is  happy  here  ? '     My  eyes  fell  down 


128  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

into  the  clear  fount ;  but  seeing  myself  in  it  I 
drew  them  to  the  grass,  such  great  shame  bur- 
dened my  brow."  But  when  he  heard  the  angels 
sing  their  compassionate  song  "  the  ice  that  was 
bound  tight  around  my  heart  became  breath  and 
water,  and  with  anguish  poured  from  the  h^art 
through  mouth  and  eyes."  ^ 

It  seems  singular  that  Dante,  purified  by  the 
fire,  and  with  brow  cleared  of  every  scar,  should 
shrink  back  with  great  shame  when  he  beheld 
himself  in  the  fount,  and  that  Beatrice  should 
L  seem  sternly  proud.  He  had  been  cleansed  from 
sin,  why  should  he  be  so  abject  in  the  presence 
of  glorified  truth  ?  It  may  be  that  the  poet  is 
speaking  of  his  own  individual  sins  rather  than  as  a 
representative  man  ;  still  it  is  more  probable  that 
he  seeks  impressively  to  teach  that  the  supreme 
sin  is  faithlessness  to  revealed  truth,  "  following 
false  images  of  good,  which  pay  no  promises  in 
full,"^  and  that  "  the  high  decree  of  God  would 
be  broken,  if  Lethe  should  be  passed,  and  such 
viands  should  be  tasted  without  any  scot  of  re- 
pentance which  may  pour  forth  tears."  ^ 
r  It  is  with  true  insight  into  Christian  experience 
that  Dante  does  not  place  the  most  poignant 
consciousness  of  sin  at  the  base  of  the  purgato- 
rial mount,  when  he  first  sets  his  feet  in  the  way 
that  leads  upward,  and  merely  washes  his  face  in 

1  Purg.  XXX.  34  fP.  2  p^^^^,  ^xx.  131^  132. 

^  Purg.  XXX.  142-144. 


/ 


WHERE  THE  SENSE  OF  SIN  IS  KEENEST    129 

the  dews  of  repentance  and  is  girded  with  the  reed  ^ 
of  humility ;  or  later  when  he  strikes  his  breast    ^ 
three  times ;  but  on  the  summit  in  the  stern  pre- 
sence of  the  veiled  Beatrice.     Then  great  shame  ^ 
burdens  his  brow ;  he  dares  not  behold  his  true    / 
image  in  the  water  at  his  feet,  and  in  utter  misery   / 
pours  forth  copious  tears.     Nowhere  is  the  poet  -^ 
more  truly  a  representative  man.    The  keenest-? 
sense  of  sin  comes  when  the  penitent  soul  first 
confronts  the  perfect  righteousness.     When  the  -^ 
pure  in  heart  see  God  they  recognize  the  foulness  S 
of  their  past,  and  what  before  appeared  only  to 
be  a  slight  lapse  is  now  seen  as  an  affront  to  God. 
^'  Against  Thee,  Thee  only  have  I  sinned  "  is  the 
final  view  of  personal  wrongdoing.     John  Henry 
Newman,  in  his  noble   poem    ''  The    Dteam    of 
Gerontius,"  makes  the  soul's  sharpest  Purgatory 
to  be  the  meeting  with  Christ. 

"  The  sight  of  Him  will  kindle  in  thy  heart 
All  tender,  gracious,  reverential  thoughts. 
Thou  wilt  be  sick  with  love,  and  yearn  for  Him, 
And  feel  as  though  thou  could'st  but  pity  Him, 
That  one  so  sweet  should  e'er  have  placed  Himself 
At  disadvantage  such,  as  to  be  used 
So  vilely  by  a  being  so  vile  as  thee. 
There  is  a  pleading  in  His  pensive  eyes 
Will  pierce  thee  to  the  quick  and  trouble  thee. 
And  thou  wilt  hate  and  loathe  thyself,  for  though 
Now  sinless,  thou  wilt  feel  that  thou  hast  siun'd, 
As  never  thou  didst  feel  ;  and  wilt  desire 
To  slink  away,  and  hide  thee  from  His  sight." 

Remorse  is  the  feeling  of  the  penitent  at  the 
gate  of  heaven,  and  not  the  torment  of  the  lost. 


VII 


THE  MIND  PURGED  FROM  AN  EVIL  CONSCIENCE, 
AND  ENDUED  WITH  POWER 

Dante  now  confronts  one  of  the  deepest  of  all 
spiritual  problems :(  How  cleanse  the  mind  of  a 
bad  memory?'  One  cannot  enter  into  everlast- 
ing felicity  unless  he  is  in  harmony  with  God, 
himself,  and  mth  his  own  record.  Must  an  ugly 
crime  always  throw  its  black  shadow  on  celestial 
light  ?  Must  the  memory  forever  hold  its  haunt- 
ing spectres  to  bring  regret  amid  heavenly  joys  ? 
Every  deep  religious  thinker,  every  aroused 
conscience,  has  eagerly  asked  these  questions. 
The  Persian  Omar  gives  a  well-nigh  hopeless 
response :  — 

"  The  Moving  Finger  writes  ;  and  having  writ, 
Moves  on  ;  not  all  your  Piety  nor  Wit 
Shall  lure  it  back  to  cancel  half  a  Line, 

Nor  all  your  Tears  wash  out  a  Word  of  it."  ^ 

The  startled  mind  of  Macbeth,  girt  with  horror 
as  he  peers  into  the  future,  asks  of  the  phy- 
sician :  — 

"  Canst  thou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseas'd, 
Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow, 

*  Rubdiydtj  Ixxi.  fifth  edition. 


MIND  PURGED  FROM  EVIL  CONSCIENCE    131 

Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain, 
And  with  some  sweet  oblivious  antidote 
Cleanse  the  stuff'd  bosom  of  that  perilous  stuff 
Which  weighs  upon  the  heart  ?  "  ^ 

He,  too,  is  hopeless  and  feels  that  the  one  ruddy 
drop  of  his  sin  will  incarnadine  the  sea. 

The  penetrating  and  comprehensive  mind  of 
Paul  perceived  and  resolutely  grappled  the  diffi- 
culty. Christ  may  justify  us  before  God,  but  ^ 
who  is  able  to  justify  us  before  the  bar  of  our  1/ 
own  conscience  ?  God  may  forgive,  but  the  soul  / 
will  still  remember.  To  relieve  the  memory  of  '  y 
its  burden  of  sin  is  speculatively  imj)ossible;  but 
j^ractically  Paul  felt  that  he  had  solved  the  enigma. 
He  wrenched  himself  so  completely  from  his  old 
life  that  he  was  dead  to  it.  He  was  a  new  crea- 
ture. "  It  is  no  longer  I  that  live,  but  Christ 
that  liveth  in  me,"  he  exclaimed.  The  fact  of 
sin  mio'ht  remain,  but  he  had  chano^ed  his  rela- 
tionship  to  it ;  repentance  had  modified  the  effect 
of  it  upon  his  spirit ;  and  his  new  purpose,  his 
changed  environment,  his  vivid  consciousness  of 
the  breadth  and  length  and  depth  and  height 
of  Christ's  love  had  merged  his  memory  in  a 
sea  of  new  life  and  joy,  so  that  the  unsightly 
record  was  really  lost  like  a  pebble  in  the  ocean. 
Edwards  with  his  lofty  sense  of  the  divine  sover- 
eignty went  even  further,  and  asserted  that  the 
recollection  of  a  godless  past  would  be  sweet  to 

1  Macbeth^  Act  V.  Sc.  iii. 


132  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 


the  redeemed,  as  through  it  all  could  be  seen  the 
shininjx  of  divine  gfrace. 

Dante  embodies  his  solution  in  a  scene  of  re- 

^l     markable  beauty/     When  he  recovered  from  the 

\   swoon,  into  which  he  had  fallen  at  the  reproach 

of    Beatrice,  Matilda   drew  him    into    the  river 

^  Lethe,  while  sweet  voices  from  the  blessed  shore 

sang :  ''  Purge  me  with   hyssop,  and  I  shall  be 

clean."     When   he    had  drunk    of  the    strange 

waters  all  memory  of  his  former  sins  vanished, 

indicatinof  that  a  life  of  active  virtue  leads  to  a 

forgetfulness  of  past  evil.     He  would  have  come 

much  nearer  the  Biblical   solution,  if  Beatrice, 

the    Divine    Revelation  —  rather  than   Matilda, 

.    virtuous    activity  —  had    plunged  him   into   the 

mao^ical  wave.     It  is    the  realization  of   divine 

\  mercy  and  not  absorption  in  work  that  draws  the 

>^  sting  from  the  past. 

One  more  experience  awaits  the  redeemed  soul 
ere  it  is  fit  to  Aving  its  flight  to  the  stars.  The 
Catholic  Church  teaches  the  doctrine  of  "  reviv- 
ing merit."  The  good  which  men  have  done 
lives  in  them.  The  fair  as  well  as  the  foul  is 
written  on  the  tablets  of  the  mind,  and  what  is 
good,  God  never  allows  to  be  blotted  out.  And 
so  into  the  river  Eunoe,  flowing  from  the  same 
source  as  Lethe,  the  poet  is  led,  and  takes  of  that 
sweet  draught  which  revives  his  powers  crippled 
by  sin  :  "  I  returned  from  the  most  holy  wave, 

^  Purg.  xxxi. 


MIND  PURGED  FHOM  EVIL  CONSCIENCE    133 

renovated  as  new  plants  renewed  with  new  foliage, 
pure  and  disposed  to  mount  unto  the  stars."  ^ 
Whatever  one's  philosophy  the  fact  remains  that 
in  the  human  spirit  there  is  an  immense  power  ^^ 
of  recovery,  amounting  ^practically  to  the  wiping 
out  of  the  old  and  the  creation  of  the  new,  to  a 
Lethe  and  a  Eunoe. 

^  Purg.  xxxiii.  142-145. 


VIII 

THE    DOCTRINE    OF    EXPIATION 

In  pondering  the  way  of  life  by  which  this 
high-priest  of  the  Middle  Ages  proclaims  that 
men  attain  perfect  liberty,  one  cannot  but  remark 
the  stress  he  lays  upon  a  principle  which  has 
well-nicrh  faded  from  the  Protestant  mind.  It  is 
that  of  expiation.  Dante  elsewhere  very  tersely 
states  this  satisfaction  which  one  must  render  to 
the  moral  law :  "  And  to  his  dignity  he  never 
returns,  unless,  where  sin  makes  void,  he  fill  up 
for  evil  pleasures  with  just  penalties."  ^  Sin 
cleaves  the  moral  order  as  ho-htnino^  does  the 
atmosphere,  causing  an  inevitable  reaction  to  re- 
store the  equilibrium  of  forces.  This  inexorable 
setting  in  of  the  moral  energies  to  fill  the  void 
made  by  evil  doing  we  call  retributive  justice,  or 
the  wrath  of  God.  Indio^nant  riohteousness  is 
the  same  wherever  found,  whether  in  an  individ- 
ual, in  a  community,  or  in  the  Almighty.  By  one 
of  two  ways  only  can  it  be  propitiated ;  either 
by  a  restitution  equal  to  the  injury,  or  by  a  full 
realization  of  the  sin  and  an  adequate  contrition 

1  Par.  vii.  82-84. 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  EXPIATION  135 

therefor.  A  perfect  aniendment  of  the  havoc 
wrought  by  iniquity  is  impossible  ;  the  soul  must 
seek  justification  by  the  alternative  path.  It 
must  enter  the  gate  of  justification  by  treacling 
each  of  the  three  steps  upon  which  Dante  pressed 
his  feet.  The  sinner  must  see  himself  mirrored 
as  he  is,  he  must  be  completely  contrite,  and  then 
bring  forth  fruit  meet  for  repentance,  atoning  as 
far  as  in  him  lies  for  the  evil  he  has  done. 

Expiation  is  no  musty  dogma  of  the  school- 
men, but  a  hving  truth.  Sin  can  be  completely 
pardoned  only  when  there  is  a  fuU-souled  con- 
fession, contrition,  and  such  measure  of  satis- 
faction as  the  wrong- doer  can  render.  Dr. 
Johnson,  going  in  his  old  age  to  Lichfield,  and 
standing  all  day  in  the  market-place,  amid 
sneers  and  rain,  to  expiate  his  refusal  to  keep  his 
father's  book-stall  upon  the  very  spot  where  he 
had  once  made  the  refusal,  is  a  pathetic  illustra- 
tion that  man  cannot  forofive  himself  until  he  has 
made  public  confession  of  his  repentance  and 
done  something  to  prove  his  sincerity.  The  pro- 
phet Hosea  could  not  take  his  faithless  wife  at 
once  to  his  bosom  :  — 

"  In  silence  and  alone 
In  shame  and  sorrow,  wailing,  fast  and  prayer 
She  must  blot  out  the  stain  that  made  her  life 

One  long  pollution." 

This  stern  and  august  conception  of  the  re- 
tributive recoil  of  the  moral  order  upon  sin  has 


13G  THE  TEACHINGS   OF  DANTE 

fifrown  somewhat  dim  in  the  modern  relirious 
consciousness.  We  emphasize  the  fatherhood 
rather  than  the  justice  of  God.  We  make  the 
penalties  for  crime  corrective,  rather  than  puni- 
tive, and  rightly  ;  nevertheless,  we  must  rein- 
state in  our  thouo^ht  in  somethino^  of  its  former 
grandeur  and  power  the  unvarying  law,  which  to 
the  swarthy  Florentine  prophet  works  through 
all  life :  "  Where  sin  makes  void,"  man  must 
"  fill  up  for  evil  pleasures  with  just  penalties." 
Nemesis  was  no  idle  dream  of  classical  antiquity, 
and  the  doctrine  of  expiation  which  has  loomed 
so  large  in  the  thought  of  the  profoundest 
minds  of  the  Church,  while  it  may  need  restate- 
ment, will  refuse  to  be  so  jauntily  rejected  as  it 
is  by  much  of  our  newer  theology.  Neglected 
in  the  religious  teachings  oi  the  day,  it  is  reap- 
pearing as  the  dominant  truth  in  the  master- 
pieces of  fiction.  But  although  it  needs  fuller 
recognition  than  it  receives,  there  tower  above  it 
other  monumental  verities,  whose  shining  glory 
neither  Dante  nor  our  modern  novelists  have  be- 
held. 


IX 

THE    ABSENCE    OF    CHRIST 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  the  "Purgatorio"  is 
one  of  the  most  deeply  religious  books  in  the 
world.  Yet  it  still  comes  far  short  of  embodying 
the  loftiest  spiritual  ideals.  Its  way  to  liberty  is 
not  the  path  pointed  out  by  Him  who  said  "  I 
am  the  way."  Christ  laid  emphasis  on  the  in- 
timate relationship  of  His  disciples  with  Himself 
as  the  power  to  redeem  them  from  sin.  Their 
love  for  Him  and  His  presence  in  them  was  to 
free  them  from  the  bondage  and  relics  of  evil. 
Paul  faced  identically  the  same  problem  that 
confronted  our  austere  prophet ;  but  his  answer 
was  far  different :  "  For  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of 
life  in  Christ  Jesus  made  me  free  from  the  law 
of  sin  and  of  death."  ^  He  did  not  think  of  him- 
self as  creeping  up  some  almost  inaccessible 
height.  A  stupendous  power  of  life  had  gotten 
hold  of  him,  mastered  him  to  his  being's  core, 
and  was  working  out  its  own  purpose.  The  love 
of  Christ  constrained  him  rather  than  a  desire 
for   personal   salvation.     John  Wesley   felt  he 

1  Rom.  8  :  2. 


138  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

had  not  been  converted  until  he  had  given  up 
"  will- work "  and  "  self  re-generation,"  and 
trusted  in  the  indwelling  Christ  for  his  sanctifi- 
cation.  Dante  .is  not  merely  the  child  of  his 
time  in  thus  seeking  liberty  ;  he  is  the  child  of 
his  temperament.  St.  Francis,  whom  he  praises  so 
ardently  in  the  "  Paradiso,"  was  loosed  from  the 
bondage  of  his  sin  through  his  rapturous  love 
of  an  ever  present  Saviour.  He  repented  of  his 
sins  and  confessed  them  in  genuine  contrition, 
and  then  brought  forth  fruit  meet  for  repent- 
ance ;  but  he  was  conscious  of  no  long  sad  years 
of  dreary  labor  in  order  to  fill  up  the  void  made 
by  evil  pleasures  with  just  penalties.  His 
thoughts  were  not  centred  upon  his  own  suf- 
ferings, but  upon  Christ's,  until  the  very  print 
of  the  nails  appeared  upon  his  hands  and  feet^ 
He  did  not  set  himself  resolutely  to  break  down 
evil  habits  by  a  toilsome  building  up  of  virtuous 
ones.  His  ceaseless  activities  sprang  sponta- 
neously out  of  his  fervent  love  for  his  divine 
master,  and  this  made  his  earthly  purgatorial 
life  exultant  with  a  joy  that  is  wanting  in 
Dante's  "  Purgatory." 

St.  Bernard,  whom  Dante  so  reverenced  as 
to  choose  him  as  interpreter  in  that  supreme 
moment  when  he  was  about  to  look  upon  God, 
could  not  have  left  a  sense  of  sweet  personal 
communion  w^tli  Christ  so  completely  out  of 
the  "  Purgatorio  "  and  ^'  Paradiso."     He  said  to 


THE  ABSENCE  OF  CHRIST  139 

the  people  who  flocked  to  his  cloister :  "  If  thou 
writest,  nothing  therein  has  savor  to  me  unless 
I  read  Jesus  in  it.  If  thou  discussest  or  con- 
versest,  nothing  there  is  agreeable  to  me  unless 
in  it  also  Jesus  resounds.  Jesus  is  honey  in 
the  mouth,  melody  in  the  ear,  a  song  of  jubi- 
lee in  the  heart."  ^  Horace  Bushnell  in  his  im- 
pressive sermon  on  *^  The  Lost  Purity  Restored  " 
considers  the  same  problem  that  interested 
Dante,  but  his  solution  is  far  different.  "  It  is 
Christ  beheld  with  face  unveiled,  reflecting  God's 
own  beauty  and  love  upon  us,  as  in  a  glass,  that 
changes  us  from  glory  to  glory.  If  by  faith  we 
go  with  Christ,  and  are  perfectly  insphered  in 
his  society,  so  as  to  be  of  it,  then  we  shall  grow 
pure.  The  assimilating  power  of  Christ,  when 
faithfully  adhered  to  as  the  soul's  divine  brother, 
and  lived  with  and  lived  upon,  will  infallibly 
renovate,  transform,  and  purify  us.  The  result 
is  just  as  certain  as  our  oneness  or  society  with 
Hun.  We  shall  grow  pure  because  He  is.  The 
glorious  power  of  His  character  and  life  will  so 
invest  our  nature,  that  we  shall  be  in  it,  and 
live  it.  .  .  .  Havino^  that  faith  to  which  Jesus 
is  personally  revealed,  you  can  be  conscious  of  a 
growing  purity  of  soul,  and  I  know  not  any 
other  way.  .  .  .  When  a  soul  is  there  enfolded, 
hid  with  Christ  in  the  recesses  of  God's  pure 
majesty,  0  !  what  airs  of  health  breathe  upon  it 

^  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  by  R.  S.  Storrs,  p.  17. 


140  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

and  throuo-li  it !     How  vital  does  it  become,  and 

how  rapidly  do  the  mixed   causes    of   sin  settle 

into  the  transparent  flow  of  order  and  peace  !  "  ^ 

1  Sermons  for  the  New  Lifey  p.  276  ff. 


THE    SEPARATION    OF   MORALITY  FROM   RELIGION 

This  omission  of  the  presence  of  a  personal 
Redeemer  is  partly  due  to  Dante's  emphasis  upon 
God's  manifestation  of  Himself  in  a  system  of 
theology  rather  than  in  a  Saviour,  —  Beatrice, 
not  Christ,  was  the  supreme  revelation  of  the 
Father,  —  and  partly  to  the  vicious  and  artificial 
distinction  which  the  schoolmen  made  between 
the  moral  and  the  rehsfious.  St.  Thomas  souo-ht 
to  draw  a  hue  between  what  a  man  can  know 
and  attain  through  the  exercise  of  his  own  facul- 
ties, and  what  must  be  disclosed  to  hmi.  He 
recognized  a  gulf  between  the  natural  and  the 
supernatiu*al.  Man's  native  reason  is  able  to 
show  him  the  nature  and  consequences  of  sin, 
and  to  lead  him  to  temporal  felicity  and  purity 
of  heart.  But  God,  immortality,  and  high 
spiritual  truths  are  beyond  reason  and  must  be 
revealed.  Upon  this  distinction  are  built  the 
"  Purgatorio  "  and  the  "  Paradiso  ;  "  yet  it  is 
hurtful.  It  is  the  old  baneful  separation  of  the 
ethical  and  spiritual  life.  Cardmal  Newman  has 
said  that  the  atonement  should  not  be  preached  to 


142  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

the  unconverted,  but  that  the  preacher  should 
mark  out  obedience  to  the  moral  law  as  the 
ordinary  means  of  attaining  to  the  Christian 
faith.  That  is,  first  moral  purity,  then  re- 
ligion. Paul's  programme  was  different ;  when 
he  went  to  Corinth  he  preached  first  of  all  the 
forsriveness  of  sins  and  the  resurrection.  He 
brought  the  repentant  soul,  not  through  a  long 
process  of  moral  purgation,  but  face  to  face  with 
the  living  Christ;  this  infuses  a  new  life  and 
calls  forth  an  answering  love.  The  expulsive 
power  of  this  ardent  affection  makes  a  new 
creature,  who  does  not  set  himself  doggedly  to 
break  down  old  habits  and  form  better  ones, 
but  constrained  by  love  gives  himself  to  grate- 
ful service.  This  is  the  way  to  the  "glorious 
liberty  of  the  children  of  God,"  and  it  is  a 
diviner  way  than  that  over  which  this  sad-souled 
prophet,  who  had  not  yet  caught  sight  of  the 
robes  of  Christ,  or  seen  the  beautiful  eyes  of 
Beatrice,  pressed  his  weary  feet.  Yet  Dante's 
way  of  life  is  a  true  way,  traveled  often  by 
men  in  all  communions  who  purify  their  souls 
by  beholding  truth  in  the  fives  of  others,  by  the 
constant  practice  of  virtue,  and  by  patiently 
follomng  reason,  instead  of  joyfully  serving 
Christ. 


XI 

INTERCESSORY     PRAYER 

There  is  a  second  principle  that  formed  a  very 
prominent  part  of  Dante's  thought.  He  asked 
Virgil  in  Ante-Purgatory  how  intercessory  prayer 
could  bend  the  decree  of  heaven.  The  reply  was  : 
"  For  top  of  judgment  vails  not  itself,  because  a 
fire  of  love  may,  in  one  instant,  fulfill  that  which 
he  who  is  stationed  here  must  satisfy."  ^  That  is, 
love  can  take  the  place  of  punishment  without 
weakening  justice.  Prayers  and  good  deeds  of 
the  innocent  are  accepted  in  lieu  of  the  expiatory 
punishment  of  the  guilty.  It  is  notable  that 
Dante  does  not  lay  stress  upon  masses  and  alms- 
giving, though  once  he  seems  to  hint  of  the  effi- 
cacy of  both  words  and  works.  "  How  much 
may  be  said  or  done  by  us  to  help  them  purge 
away  the  stains."  Doubtless  the  wild  excesses 
into  which  the  doctrine  of  supererogatory  merits 
was  being  carried  in  his  day  held  him  back  ;  but 
he  puts  repeated  emphasis  on  the  value  of  inter- 
cessory prayer  and  the  grace  it  works  on  the  soul 
of  the  one  for  whom  prayers  are  offered. 
1  Purg.  vi.  37-39. 


144  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

In  Purgatory  proper  the  prayers  of  the  living 
have  for  their  object  the  tempering  of  the  mind 
of  the  sufferer  that  he  may  the  more  speedily  be 
made  perfect  through  his  sufferings  :  — 

"  Well  may  we  help  them  wash  away  the  marks 

That  hence  they  carried,  so  that  clean  and  light 
They  may  ascend  unto  the  starry  wheels  !  "  ^ 

"With  this  thought  we  are  familiar  in  so  far  as 
it  applies  to  this  life.  Protestants  have  almost 
universally  refused  to  pray  for  the  dead  because, 
in  their  rejection  of  the  Catholic  dogma  of  Pur- 
gatory, the  Reformers  asserted  that  the  dead  went 
immediately  to  their  final  state,  and  against  this 
irrevocable  doom  all  petitions  were  unavailing. 
Now  that  the  prevailing  conception  is  that  there 
may  be  a  progressive  development  after  death  it 
is  not  impossible  that  prayers  for  the  departed 
may  yet  be  heard  in  Protestant  pulpits. 

I  Purg.  xi.  34-36. 


XII 

A     SELF-CENTRED     SALVATION 

Dante's  way  of  life  is  susceptible  to  this  fur- 
ther criticism.  It  is  too  individualistic.  His 
souls  are  in  a  sort  of  moral  gymnasium  with 
thoughts  centred  on  their  own  salvation.  They 
render  no  service,  if  we  except  the  occasional 
prayers  offered  for  those  on  earth.  He  who 
would  save  his  life  must  lose  it.  Vicarious  suf- 
fering is  the  chief  redemptive  force  in  life.  We 
save  ourselves  in  self-forgetful  deeds  for  others. 
Souls  in  Paradise  indeed  grow  brighter  when 
they  are  pleasing  others,  but  in  Purgatory  we 
find  a  conscious  self-redemption  that  is  painful 
and  unreal.  Blessedness  is  achieved  by  working 
at  duty  rather  than  at  goodness.  However, 
Dante  does  not  forget  to  mention  that  strong 
bond  of  sympathy  which  always  unites  those  who 
have  fellowship  in  suffering  in  hope  of  a  common 
reward.  While  he  and  Virgil  were  advancing 
along  the  road  upon  the  ledge  of  the  Avaricious, 
the  mountain  shook  violently  as  with  an  earth- 
quake, and  all  the  imprisoned  spirits  lifted  their 
voices  in  praise,  saying :  —  "  Gloria  in  excelsis 


146  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

DeoT  Thirstino:  to  know  the  cause  of  this 
strange  event,  Dante  was  making  his  way  along 
the  encumbered  road  when  the  shade  of  the  poet 
Statins  appeared,  who  explained  that  when  a  soul 
felt  itself  pure,  and,  impelled  by  a  strong  inclina- 
tion, moved  upward,  then  the  whole  mountain 
trembled  in  sympathetic  joy,  and  every  spirit 
joined  in  a  hymn  of  praise/  This  beautiful  ex- 
pression of  the  unity  of  the  sufferers  in  joy 
almost  atones  for  the  lack  of  any  intimation  that 
they  had  learned  the  New  Testament  injunction 
to  bear  one  another's  burdens. 
1  Purg.  XX.  124  ff. 


XIII 

PURGATORY    m    LITERATURE 

Purgatory  is  a  process  rather  than  a  place. 
We  may  deny  the  place,  but  the  process  is  life 
itself,  which  no  one  can  ponder  deeply  and  de- 
scribe Tvdthout  picturing  a  "  Purgatorio."  Most 
of  the  masterpieces  of  fiction  are  but  a  restate- 
ment of  Dante's  task.  Their  problem  is  to  show 
how  sms  are  expiated  and  souls  purified  by  pam 
and  toil.  Purgatory  banished  from  theology 
has  made  its  home  in  literature,  yet  in  this  meta- 
morphosis from  a  dogma  of  the  theologian  to 
the  plot  of  the  novelist  its  essential  character  is 
unchanged.  The  purgatorial  process  portrayed 
in  hterature  comes  much  nearer  the  standard 
of  the  Tuscan  poet  than  the  ideals  of  the  New 
Testament. 

I  can  find  no  indication  in  Hawthorne's  life 
that  he  ever  read  a  canto  of  Dante.  "  The  Scarlet 
Letter  "  was  written  before  he  learned  Italian,  but 
the  similarity  between  this  powerful  novel  and 
the  "  Purgatorio  "  is  very  striking.  The  scene  of 
one  is  m  Boston,  and  of  the  other  on  the  Holy 
Mountain  j  but  in  both  the  interest  centres  in 


148  THE  TEACHINGS   OF  DANTE 

tracing  the  rugged  and  fiery  path  by  which 
hberty  from  the  stain  and  power  of  sin  is  at- 
tained. The  weird  and  gloomy  genius  of  the 
Protestant  has  drawn  even  a  more  terrible  pic- 
ture than  did  the  Catholic  of  the  Middle  Ao^es. 
Hawthorne's  purpose  was  to  show  how  Hester 
Prynne,  who  for  the  sin  of  adultery  was  con- 
demned to  wear  the  scarlet  letter  A  exposed 
upon  her  bosom,  and  Arthur  Dimmesdale,  her 
unrevealed  partner  in  guilt,  purified  their  souls 
through  purgatorial  sufferings.  So  closely  do 
the  minds  of  these  two  powerful  writers  keep  to- 
gether in  unfolding  their  common  thought  that 
sometimes  almost  identical  forms  of  expression 
and  experience  are  used.  In  one  place  Haw- 
thorne employs  a  sentence  to  describe  the  lot  of 
his  hero  that  reminds  us  very  forcibly  of  Dante's 
famous  account  of  his  own  experiences.  Mr. 
Dimmesdale  had  chosen  single  blessedness ; 
therefore  he  is  compelled  "  to  eat  his  unsavory 
morsel  always  at  another's  board,  and  endure 
the  life-long  chill  which  must  be  his  lot  who 
seeks  to  warm  himself  only  at  another's  fireside."  ^ 
Very  similar  is  Dante's  statement  of  his  own 
homeless  condition  in  the  well-known  prophecy 
of  Cacciaguida :  — 

"  Thou  shalt  have  proof  how  savoureth  of  salt 
The  bread  of  others,  and  how  hard  a  road 
The  going  down  and  up  another's  stairs."  2 

1  The  Scarlet  Letter,  cliap.  ix.  ^  p^r.  xvii.  58-GO. 


PURGATORY  IN  LITERATURE  149 

The  sweetest  passage  in  the  "  Inferno  "  is  the 
poet's  recital  of  his  meeting  with  Francesca  da  Ri- 
mini. Leigh  Hunt  calls  it "  a  lily  in  the  mouth  of 
Tartarus."  The  only  consolation  left  to  poor 
Francesca,  as  she  was  swept  about  on  the  never 
resting  blast,  was  that  from  Paolo  she  would  never 
be  separated.  Their  sin  had  made  them  one  for- 
ever. Hester  had  been  carried  into  the  same 
Inferno  by  the  impetuous  rush  of  the  same  pas- 
sion, and  while  there  her  solace  was  also  the 
same.  She  might  have  fled  from  the  Puri- 
itan  colony  and  thus  have  escaped  part  of  her 
penalty,  but  she  refused,  because  "  there  dwelt, 
there  trode  the  feet  of  one  with  whom  she  deemed 
herself  connected  in  a  union  that,  unrecognized 
on  earth,  would  bring  them  together  before  the 
bar  of  final  judgment,  and  make  that  their  mar- 
riage altar  for  a  joint  futurity  of  endless  retribu- 
tion. Over  and  over  again,  the  tempter  of  souls 
had  thrust  this  idea  upon  Hester's  contemplation 
and  laughed  at  the  j)assionate  and  desperate  joy 
with  which  she  seized,  and  then  strove  to  cast  it 
from  her.  She  barely  looked  the  idea  in  the  face, 
and  hastened  to  bar  it  in  its  duno^eon."  ^  Thus 
did  Hester  for  a  moment  taste  of  the  sweet  com- 
fort which  was  Francesca' s  sole  alleviation  in  tor- 
ment, but  she  escaped  from  her  own  Hell  into 
Purgatory  because  she  thrust  it  from  her,  and 
with  acquiescent  mind  endured  her  punishment. 
^  The  Scarlet  Letter^  chap.  v. 


150  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

Dante's  problem  was  to  erase  the  seven  P's 
from  his  forehead  ;  Hawthorne's  was  to  let  the 
scarlet  letter  A  burn  on  the  breast  of  Hester 
until  it  purified  her  soul.  Each  shows  that  the  w^ay 
to  absolution  is  up  the  three  steps  of  contrition, 
confession,  expiation.  True  contrition  there  was 
in  the  hearts  of  both  Hester  and  the  clergyman, 
but  the  latter's  life  was  a  sickening  tragedy  be- 
cause he  lacked  the  courage  to  confess  his  crime. 
He  would  have  two  steps  rather  than  three  by 
which  to  enter  into  the  gate,  but  he  learned  that 
there  can  be  no  true  contrition  without  a  confes- 
sion. "  Happy  are  you,  Hester,  that  wear  the 
scarlet  letter  openly  upon  your  bosom  !  Mine 
burns  in  secret !  Thou  little  knowest  what  a  re- 
lief it  is,  after  the  torment  of  a  seven  years'  cheat, 
to  look  into  an  eye  that  recognizes  me  for  what  I 
am !  Had  I  a  friend  —  or  w^ere  it  my  w^orst 
enemy !  —  to  whom,  when  sickened  wdtli  the 
praises  of  all  other  men,  I  could  daily  betake  my- 
self and  be  known  as  the  vilest  of  all  sinners,  me- 
thinks  my  soul  might  keep  itself  alive  thereby. 
Even  this  much  of  truth  would  save  me.  But 
now  it  is  all  falsehood  !  —  all  emptiness  !  — 
all  death  !  "  ^  And  it  is  not  until  he  makes  a  pub- 
lic confession  on  the  scaffold  that  he  dies  in  hope. 
In  that  last  tracjic  scene  he  attests  that  God's 
grace  working  through  the  stern  and  indispen- 
sable trinity,  confession,  contrition,  satisfaction, 

^  Ihid.  chap.  xvii. 


PURGATORY  IN  LITERATURE  151 

which  Dante  recognized,  had  ransomed  his  soul : 
"  God  knows ;  and  He  is  merciful !  He  hath 
proved  his  mercy  most  of  all  in  my  afflictions  by 
giving  me  this  burning  torture  to  bear  upon  my 
breast !  by  sending  yonder  dark  and  terrible  old 
man  to  keep  the  torture  always  at  red-heat !  by 
bringing  us  hither  to  die  this  death  of  trium- 
phant ignominy  before  the  people  !  Had  either  of 
these  agonies  been  wanting  I  should  have  been 
lost  forever  I  "  ^  But  the  absorbing  interest  of 
Hawthorne's  powerful  story  hes  in  the  revelation 
of  how  expiatory  sufferings  cleanse  Hester's  soul. 
The  shades  whom  Dante  saw  upon  the  mountain 
preferred  to  remain  constantly  in  their  torments 
that  they  might  the  sooner  be  purified.  Hester 
abode  near  the  scene  of  her  guilt  that  "  perchance 
the  torture  of  her  daily  shame  would  at  length 
purge  her  soul,  and  work  out  another  purity  than 
that  which  she  had  lost ;  more  saintlike,  because 
the  result  of  martyrdom."  '^  These  continual  suf- 
ferings, at  once  expiatory  toward  the  moral  sense 
of  the  community  and  remedial  to  herself,  finally 
changed  the  scarlet  letter  from  a  badge  of  shame 
to  a  symbol  of  purity  and  holiness. 

We  miss  in  Hawthorne  what  we  missed  in 
Dante.  There  is  no  strong  sense  of  the  forgive- 
ness of  God,  no  mighty  and  triumphant  love  heal- 
ing the  soul  and  urging  it  to  joyful  service.  The 
cross  is  but  a  dim  light  in  the  background,  not  a 

1  Ibid.  chap,  xxiii.  ^  Ihid.  chap,  v. 


152  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

living  reality  changing  a  vague  hope  to  love. 
The  novelist  doubtless  portrayed  common  life, 
but  Mary  Magdalene,  with  her  loving  devotion 
to  Christ,  walked  in  a  better  way  than  Hester 
Prynne. 

Tennyson's  "  Guinevere  "  embodies  the  same 
truths  and  the  same  radical  defect  as  the  "  Purga- 
torio."  The  queen  by  her  sin  with  Lancelot  had 
stained  her  own  soul  black  with  guilt,  had  spoiled 
the  purpose  of  King  Arthur's  Hfe,  and  brought 
"  red  ruin  and  the  breaking  up  of  laws  "  into  the 
kingdom.  Is  it  possible  for  her  to  so  purify  herself 
that  she  may  be  reunited  to  the  king  ?  "  Per- 
chance," says  Tennyson  :  and  in  the  dialogue  be- 
tween Arthur  and  the  queen  he  describes  the 
identical  purgatorial  process  which  the  laureate 
of  the  mediaeval  church  has  laid  down.  King 
Arthur  could  say  to  his  guilty  spouse  :  — 

"  Lo  !  I  forgive  thee,  as  Eternal  God 
Forgives  :  do  thou  for  thine  own  soul  the  rest." 

Her  part  is  to  fully  know  her  sin. 

"  Bear  with  me  for  the  last  time  while  I  show, 
Ev'n  for  thy  sake,  the  sin  which  thou  hast  siun'd." 

She  must  repent :  — 

"  prone  from  off  her  seat  she  fell, 
And  grovell'd  with  her  face  against  the  floor." 

Her  own  deeds  must  supplement  the  grace  of 
God:  — 

"  Let  no  man  dream  but  that  I  love  thee  still. 
Perchance,  and  so  thou  purify  thy  soul, 


PURGATORY  IN  LITERATURE  153 

And  so  thou  lean  on  our  fair  father  Christ, 
Hereafter  in  that  world  where  all  are  pure   ' 
We  two  may  meet  before  high  God,  and  thou 
Wilt  spring  to  me,  and  claim  me  thine,  and  know 
I  am  thine  husband." 

Thus  did  the  queen  fit  herself  for  the  bosom  of 
Arthur.  Shut  in  by  "  narrowing  nunnery  walls  " 
she  wore  out  in 

"  almsdeed  and  in  prayer 
The  sombre  close  of  that  voluptuous  day," 

ministerintr  to  the  hearts  of  others  and  thus  heal- 
ing  her  own,  until  she 

"  past 
To  where  beyond  these  voices  there  is  peace." 

All  this  is  rigidly  true  of  life,  but  one  coming 
fresh  from  the  pages  of  the  New  Testament  can- 
not read  this  story  without  feeling  that  the  som- 
bre evening  of  the  queen's  voluptuous  day  lacked 
certain  sunset  clouds  of  glory  which  are  so  clearly 
promised  to  those  who  have  been  forgiven  much. 
What  is  true  of  the  "  Scarlet  Letter "  and  of 
"  Guinevere  "  is  true  of  most  of  the  great  works 
of  modern  fiction.  They  are  Dantean  rather  than 
Christian. 


XIV 

CONCLUSION 

There  are  certain  ineffaceable  impressions 
made  upon  the  mind  of  every  earnest  student  of 
the  "  Purgatorio."  One  is  that  the  soul  begins  the 
upward  way  of  liberty  and  power  when  it  recog- 
nizes the  justice  and  wisdom  of  God  in  its  jDun- 
ishments,  and  by  acquiescing  in  them  makes  them 
disciplinary  and  cleansing.  The  consciousness  of 
God  determines  whether  life  is  a  Hell  or  a  Pur- 
gatory. Without  this  recognition  of  the  divine 
order  all  pain  is  torment ;  with  it  suffering  be- 
comes corrective  and  purifying. 

Most  powerful  also  is  the  teaching  that  it  is 
sin  rather  than  punishment  from  which  men  need 
to  be  delivered.  The  problem  of  much  theology, 
both  Catholic  and  Protestant,  is  to  shield  the 
soul  from  the  penalties  of  its  wrong-doing ;  the 
aim  of  the  Scriptures  is  to  save  man  from  sinning. 
Tetzel  w^ould  release  tortured  spirits  from  purga- 
torial fires  ;  Luther  fiercely  challenged  the. right- 
eousness of  the  procedure  :  "  If  God  has  thought 
fit  to  place  man  in  Purgatory,  who  shall  say  that 
it  is  2:ood  for  him  to  be  taken  out  of  it?     Who 


CONCLUSION  155 

shall  even  say  that  he  himself  desires  it  ? "  ^ 
Dante  in  this  agreed  with  the  reformer.  He 
represents  the  spirits  as  singing  in  the  fire  ;  the 
slothful  were  so  eag^er  to  work  out  their  sloth 
that  in  their  haste  they  seemed  churlish ;  the 
lustful  would  not  come  out  of  the  flames  lest  for 
a  single  moment  the  refining  should  stop  ;  the 
gluttonous  eat  the  wormwood  of  their  torments 
as  a  sweet  morsel ;  and  the  prayers  of  others  are 
invoked  not  to  draw  them  out  of  pain,  but  to 
help  them  out  of  sin. 

Equally  impressive  is  the  statement  of  the  in- 
evitable and  fearful  consequences  of  sin.  In  the 
"  Inferno  "  we  were  appalled  by  a  vision  of  sin  in 
its  essential  nature.  Here  we  behold  it  in  its  terri- 
ble effects.  It  is  no  slight  thing  easily  overlooked. 
It  is  a  crime  against  God.  It  creates  a  void  in 
the  moral  universe  which  must  be  filled  Avith  just 
penalties.  It  is  a  blow  at  the  divine  order,  and 
the  recoil  is  as  sure  as  the  decrees  of  the  Al- 
mighty. Moreover,  it  is  an  injury  to  the  indi- 
vidual. No  slightest  evil  temper  can  be  indulged 
without  a  black  registry  upon  the  soul  itself. 
The  blow  anger  aims  at  another  falls  upon  one's 
self  and  the  lust  that  burns  toward  others  kindles 
a  fiercer  fire  in  the  sinner's  spiritual  nature. 

Yet  it  is  impossible  to  enter  into  hfe  and  joy 
until  these  effects  are  expunged.  The  debt  must 
be  paid  in  full  to  an  outraged  moral  order ;  there 
^  Moore,  Studies  in  Dante,  second  series,  p.  51. 


156  THE  TEACHINGS   OF  DANTE 

can  be  no  shuffling.  It  may  demand  the  death 
of  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  unspeakable  suffer- 
ings of  the  race  ;  but  cost  what  it  may  in  pain 
and  tears  and  passionate  love,  the  scales  of  God's 
justice  must  balance.  The  scars  also  which  sin 
has  made  upon  the  soul  must  all  be  erased,  though 
the  price  paid  be  a  millennium  of  wandering  upon 
the  Mount  of  Pain. 

Almost  fiercely  does  Dante  assert  that  while 
the  divine  love  works  upon  a  man  in  a  thousand 
ways,  yet  human  cooperation  must  be  continuous, 
absorbed,  energetic.  The  stain  of  sin  is  no  trivial 
thing,  easily  wiped  out  by  a  prayer.  Salvation  is 
no  ready-made  article  which  man  has  but  to  ac- 
cept. The  soul  is  not  saved  unless  it  keeps  think- 
ing. It  drives  out  bad  thoughts  by  good  ones. 
Constant  contemplation  of  virtue  creates  love  for 
it,  and  hate  for  the  opposite  sin  ;  the  new  thought 
and  the  new  love  being  converted  into  charac- 
ter by  ceaseless  practice.  Very  different  as  well 
as  much  inferior  is  the  common  Catholic  concep- 
tion, so  admirably  expressed  by  Newman,  that 
the  soul  is  passive  in  Purgatory  :  — 

"  Be  brave  and  patient  on  thy  bed  of  sorrow  ; 
Swiftly  shall  pass  thy  night  of  trial  here, 

And  I  will  come  and  wake  thee  on  the  morrow."^ 

To  Dante's  clearer  vision  the  prisoner  of  hope 
must  needs  strive  mightily.  He  must  work  out 
his  salvation  with  tremblinc^  eaoferness  and  win 
his  liberty  through  fiery  conflict. 

1  The  Dream  of  Gerontius. 


CONCLUSION  157 

Ineradicable  also  is  the  conviction  produced 
that  liberty  comes  only  with  moral  purity.  When 
the  prophets  of  modern  democracy  first  spoke, 
they  proclaimed  liberty  to  be  the  solvent  of  most  of 
the  evils  of  the  world,  and  the  nineteenth  century 
gave  itself  heartily  to  the  work  of  enfranchise- 
ment ;  but  the  last  decade  of  that  wonderful  cen- 
tury witnessed  a  startling  decline  in  its  faith  in 
universal  freedom.  Dante  teaches  us  that  liberty 
is  a  more  comprehensive  and  significant  word 
than  democracy  has  dreamed.  The  brain  and  the 
heart  of  man  must  be  free  as  well  as  his  hands. 
Liberty  is  not  a  donation  ;  it  is  an  achievement. 
It  dwells  on  the  summit  of  the  mountain  and  not 
at  its  base.  It  is  no  easy  thing  granted  by  a 
legislature,  but  must  be  attained  by  infinite  toil 
and  suffering. 

These  truths  the  swarthy  prophet  learned  upon 
the  Holy  Mountain.  In  words  of  sweetest  music 
and  pictures  of  imperishable  beauty  he  wrote  them 
upon  tables  of  stone,  and  then  with  face  shining 
from  his  vision,  he  brought  them  down  to  the 
people  upon  the  plain  who  heedlessly  feasted  and 
danced  about  their  golden  calf. 


THE  ASCENT  TO   GOD 


•'  I  know  not  in  the  world  an  affection  equal  to  that  of  Dante. 
It  is  a  tenderness,  a  trembling,  longing,  pitying  love  ;  like  the 
wail  of  seolian  harps,  soft,  soft  ;  like  a  child's  young  heart  ;  — 
and  then  that  stern,  sore-saddened  heart  !  These  longings  of 
his  toward  his  Beatrice  ;  their  meetings  together  in  the  Para- 
dise ;  his  gazing  into  her  pure  transfigured  eyes,  her  that  had 
been  purified  by  death  so  long,  separated  from  him  so  far  :  —  one 
likens  it  to  the  song  of  angels  ;  it  is  among  the  purest  utterances 
of  affection,  perhaps  the  very  purest,  that  ever  came  out  of  a 
human  soul."  —  Carlyle. 

**  Even  as  the  atmosphere,  when  flooded  by  the  light  of  the 
sun,  is  transfigured  into  such  clearness  of  light  that  it  does  not 
so  much  seem  to  us  to  be  illuminated  as  to  have  itself  become 
elemental  light,  so  it  is  needful  that  in  the  holy  every  human 
affection  should  in  some  ineffable  way  clear  itself  from  itself, 
and  become  inwardly  transformed  into  the  will  of  God."  —  St. 
Bernard. 

"  It  was  for  this  supremest  experience  that  Bernard  labored 
and  prayed  ;  that  he  might  know,  in  some  measure,  while  on  earth, 
the  holy  joy  of  saints  in  light.  When  such  a  final,  transfiguring 
love  should  be  vitally  present  God  would  be  revealed  not  to  the 
soul  only,  but  within  it.  It  would  have  the  immediate  intuition  of 
Him,  as  declared  in  its  ecstatic  consciousness  ;  and  in  that  would 
be  perfect  felicity.  .  .  .  With  him  the  only  perfect  attainment  of 
the  soul  was  its  union  with  the  Divine,  while  personal  conscious- 
ness was  to  be  maintained  even  in  that  ecstatic  tranquillity. 
Toward  this  he  aspired  and  constantly  labored,  seeking  to  arise, 
by  contemplation,  prayer,  assiduous  self-discipline,  noble  service, 
to  a  point  where,  by  God's  grace,  through  the  indwelling  of  His 
Spirit,  he  might  discern  Him  in  the  soul,  become  a  partaker  of 
the  Divine  nature,  be  filled  even  unto  His  fullness."  —  R.  S. 
Storks. 


THE  SUBLIME  CANTICLE  OF  THE  COMEDY 

The  "  Inferno  "  is  the  most  widely  known  por- 
tion of  the  "  Divine  Comedy,"  and  the  "  Purgato- 
rio  "  the  most  human  and  natural  because  it  best 
describes  the  present  life  in  its  weaknesses  and 
its  disciplines  ;  yet  Dante  undoubtedly  considered 
the  "  Paradiso  "  to  be  the  supreme  triumph  of  his 
prophetic  and  artistic  genius,  as  well  as  the  cul- 
mination of  his  thought. 

His  theme  here  reaches  the  fullness  of  its  gran- 
deur, and  to  rise  to  the  height  of  his  great  argu- 
ment he  realized  that  he  taxed  his  powers  to 
their  utmost.  In  his  dedication  of  it  to  Can 
Grande  he  called  it  "  the  sublime  Canticle  of 
the  Comedy."  He  felt  that  he  was  constantly 
struggling  with  the  ineffable,  that  the  vision 
hopelessly  transcended  his  speech.  Into  this  con- 
secrated poem  he  threw  his  whole  soul.  "  It  is 
no  coasting  voyage  for  a  little  barque,  this  which 
the  intrepid  prow  goes  cleaving,  nor  for  a  pilot 
who  would  spare  himself,"^  and  he  pleads  that 
he  may  well  be  excused,  if,  under  the  ponderous 

1  Par.  xxiii.  67-69. 


1G2  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

burden,  liis  mortal  shoulder  sometimes  trembles. 
Greater  task,  indeed,  never  essayed  poet  or  pro- 
phet. He  sought  to  combine  in  a  form  o£  per- 
fect beauty  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  astronomy ; 
the  teachings  of  Dionysius  the  Areopagite  re- 
garding the  celestial  hierarchy ;  the  current  as- 
trological dogma  of  stellar  influences ;  the  guesses 
of  the  crude  science  of  the  times ;  the  cumbrous 
theology  of  Aquinas  ;  the  rapt  vision  of  the  mys- 
tics ;  his  own  personal  experiences ;  his  passion- 
ate love  for  Beatrice  the  Florentine  maiden,  and 
Beatrice  the  symbol  of  divine  revelation ;  the 
whole  process  of  the  development  of  a  soul  from 
the  first  look  of  faith  to  the  final  beatitude ;  and 
even  to  symbolize  the  Triune  God  Himself  as  He 
appears  beyond  all  space  and  time.  No  wonder 
that  as  he  embarks  on  the  deeps  of  this  untried 
sea  he  warns  the  thoughtless  not  to  follow  him. 

"  O  ye,  who  in  some  pretty  little  boat, 

Eager  to  listen,  have  been  following 
Behind  my  ship,  that  singing  sails  along, 
Turn  back  to  look  again  upon  your  shores  ; 
Do  not  put  out  to  sea,  lest  peradventure, 
In  losing  me,  you  might  yourselves  be  lost. 
The  sea  I  sail  has  never  yet  been  passed  ; 
Minerva  breathes,  and  pilots  me  Apollo, 
And  Muses  nine  point  out  to  me  the  Bears."  ^ 

How  well  he  succeeded  in  this  most  hazardous 
voyage  is  a  matter  of  diverse  opinion.  Leigh 
Hunt,  who  w^as  quite  incapable  of  appreciating 
justly  such  a  nature  as  Dante's,  and  such  a  poem 

1  Par.  ii.  1-9. 


SUBLIME   CANTICLE  OF  THE  COMEDY        163 

as  the  Divine  Comedy,  in  his  little  book  entitled 
''  Stories  from  the  Italian  Poets/'  says  :  "  In 
'  Paradise '  we  realize  little  but  a  fantastical  assem- 
blage of  doctors  and  doubtful  characters,  far  more 
angry  and  theological  than  celestial ;  giddy  rap- 
tures of  monks  and  inquisitors  dancing  in  circles, 
and  saints  denouncing  Popes  and  Florentines  ;  in 
short,  a  heaven  libelling  itself  with  invectives 
against  earth,  and  terminating  in  a  great  pre- 
sumption." It  must  be  confessed  that  there  is 
much  in  this  canticle  that  on  first  acquaintance 
strikes  one  as  ridiculous.  When  we  behold  the 
flaming  spirit  of  the  venerable  Peter  Damian, 
whirling  like  a  mill-stone,  making  a  centre  of  his 
middle,  we  are  far  more  inclined  to  laugh  at  our 
own  crude  conception  of  the  grotesque  figure 
he  makes,  than  to  picture  the  beauty  of  the 
swiftly  circling  flame  and  marvel  at  the  vigorous 
spiritual  life  which  his  cyclonic  gyrations  were 
intended  to  suggest.  Doubtless  also  the  many 
quaint  mediaeval  discussions  regarding  the  spots 
on  the  moon,  the  influences  of  the  planets  on 
human  destiny,  the  language  Adam  spoke,  and 
the  length  of  time  he  spent  in  Eden  before  he 
ate  the  fatal  apple,  have  little  immediate  interest 
for  us,  and  are  endured  as  one  traverses  the 
desert  for  the  good  that  lies  beyond.  Yet  we 
must  remember  that  Dante  distinctly  states  in 
his  dedication  of  this  portion  of  his  work  to  Can 
Grande  that  when  he  deals  in  speculative  philo- 


164  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

sopliy,  it  is  not  for  the  sake  of  the  philosophy, 
but  for  practical  needs. 

Notwithstanding  all  that  is  scholastic  and 
stranjre  to  our  notion  in  the  "  Paradiso,"  its  most 
careful  students  are  generally  agreed  that  it  is  the 
fitting  crown  of  the  great  trilogy.  "  Every  line 
of  the  '  Paradiso/  "  says  Ruskin,  "  is  full  of  the 
most  exquisite  and  spiritual  expressions  of  Chris- 
tian truths,  and  the  poem  is  only  less  read  than 
the  '  Inferno  '  because  it  requires  far  greater  at- 
tention, and,  perhaps  for  its  full  enjoyment,  a 
holier  heart."  ^  In  this  w^onderful  book,  which  to 
Carlyle  was  full  of  "  inarticulate  music,"  poetry 
seems  to  reach  quite  its  highest  point.  "  It  is  a 
perpetual  hymn  of  everlasting  love,"  exclaims 
Shelley  ;  "  Dante's  apotheosis  of  Beatrice  and  the 
gradations  of  his  own  love  and  her  loveliness  by 
which  as  by  steps  he  feigns  himself  to  have  as- 
cended to  the  throne  of  the  Supreme  Cause,  is  the 
most  glorious  imagination  of  modern  poetry."  ^ 
Not  less  pronounced  is  Hallam's  judgment  that 
it  is  the  noblest  expression  of  the  poet's  genius. 
Comparing  Dante  with  Milton,  he  says :  "  The 
philosophical  imagination  of  the  former  in  this 
third  part  of  his  poem,  almost  defecated  from  all 
sublunary  things  by  long  and  solitary  musing, 
spiritualizes  all  that  it  touches."^ 

1  Stones  of  Venice,  ii.  324.  ^  Defense  of  Poetry. 

^  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  iv.  chap.  v. 


n 

THE    THEME    OF   THE   PARADISO 

In  this  canticle  Dante  seeks  to  describe  the 
nature  of  the  religious  life,  its  dominant  truths, 
its  felicities,  and  its  ultimate  beatitude.  He  is  not 
painting  a  rapturous  picture  of  bliss  to  comfort 
and  lure  the  soul  of  the  believer,  but  is  making 
a  sober  attempt  to  show  the  spiritual  life  in  its 
meaning,  development,  and  final  glory.  As  he 
could  not  make  known  the  true  hideousness  of 
sin  without  following  it  into  the  future  where  it 
made  the  full  disclosure  of  itself ;  as  the  purga- 
torial process,  although  taking  place  in  this  w^orld 
and  in  the  next,  has  the  scene  laid  after  death 
that  the  completed  work  may  be  revealed  ;  so 
the  true  life  of  man  is  delineated  against  the 
background  of  eternity.  This  affords  a  canvas 
large  enough  to  portray  the  spiritual  life  when  it 
has  come  to  the  perfection  of  its  stature.  It  is 
not  Heaven  he  is  describing,  but  the  religious 
life.  These  temporal  experiences  he  Hfts  into 
the  eternal  light  and  displays  the  fullness  of  their 
glory. 


m 

THE    BEGINNINGS    OF    THE    SPIRITUAL    LIFE 

The  first  steps  in  the  religious  life  find  their 
descriptions  in  that  wonderfully  beautiful  and 
significant  scene  in  '^  Purgatory  "  where  the  poet 
meets  Beatrice  in  the  Terrestrial  Paradise.  When 
the  soul  comes  face  to  face  with  the  revealed 
truth  of  God,  it  sees  its  sin,  repents  of  it,  con- 
fesses it,  and  looks  toward  Christ  for  atoning 
mercy.  Now  it  is  ready  to  enter  the  way  that 
leads  toward  the  Highest.  The  penitent  soul 
begins  the  spiritual  life  when  it  centres  itself 
upon  God.  "Man,"  says  Horace  Bushnell,  "finds 
his  paradise  when  he  is  imparadised  in  God.  It 
is  not  that  he  is  squared  to  certain  abstractions 
or  perfected  in  his  moral  conformity  to  certain 
impersonal  laws  ;  but  it  is  that  he  is  filled  with 
the  sublime  personality  of  God,  and  forever 
exalted  by  his  inspiration,  moving  in  the  divine 
movement,  rested  on  the  divine  centre,  blessed  in 
the  divine  beatitude."^  Thus  a  New  England 
preacher,  though  little  familiar  with  Dante, 
describes  exactly  the  experience  the  poet  went 
^  Sermons  for  the  New  Life,  pp.  41,  42. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE    167 

through,  when  after  squaring  himself  to  the  im- 
personal laws  of  Purgatory,  he  fixed  his  eyes 
upon  the  Sun  —  the  symbol  of  God.  With  tliis 
steady  gaze  there  came  into  his  soul  a  new  power, 
and  day  seemed  to  be  added  to  day.  Having 
centred  his  life  on  God,  he  now  turns  his  gaze  to 
Beatrice,  the  revealed  truth.  In  this  most  im- 
pressive way  does  Dante  give  us  his  definition  of 
faith.  It  is  the  look  of  the  soid  toward  divine 
truth  ;  it  is  that  spiritual  energy  by  which  man 
commits  himself  to  truth ;  it  is  a  look  that  trust- 
fully, without  analysis,  receives  its  object  as  a 
whole  into  the  soul. 

Yet  it  is  a  look  into  the  eyes  of  Beatrice,  those 
eyes  which  typify  the  demonstrations  of  truth. 
Here  again  we  come  upon  the  thought  that  it 
was  truth  in  its  many  manifestations  which  was 
dear  to  Dante's  soul.  If  Christ  was  not  supreme 
in  his  religious  thinking,  the  fault  was  due  to  his 
temperament  rather  than  to  any  mediaeval  dogma. 
The  faith  of  St.  Francis  had  a  different  quality. 
When,  struggling  in  his  early  days  to  enter  the 
peace  and  joy  of  religion,  he  was  praying  in  the 
Chapel  of  St.  Damian,  before  the  crucifix ;  "little 
by  little  it  seemed  to  him  that  his  gaze  could  not 
detach  itself  from  that  of  Jesus ;  he  felt  some- 
thing marvelous  taking  place  in  and  around  him. 
The  sacred  victim  took  on  life,  and  in  the  out- 
ward silence  he  was  aware  of  a  voice  which 
softly  stole  into  the  very  depths  of   his  heart, 


168  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

speaking  to  him  an  ineffable  language.  This 
vision  marks  the  final  triumph  of  Francis.  His 
union  with  Christ  is  consummated  ;  from  this 
time  he  can  exclaim  Avith  the  mystics  of  every 
age  :  '  My  beloved  is  mine,  and  I  am  his.'  "  ^ 
Spurgeon's  experience  was  similar  :  "  I  looked 
at  Christ,  and  He  looked  at  me,  and  we  were  one 
forever."  That  peculiarly  fervent  religious  tem- 
perament Dante  did  not  have.  His  mind  rested 
in  the  truth,  while  his  heart  was  satisfied  with 
its  personification  in  one  whose  memory  was  to 
him  a  religion. 

^  Sabatier's  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  p.  55. 


IV 

THE   ASTRONOMICAL    FRAMEWORK    OF    THE    POEM 

The  idea  of  describing  the  development  of  the 
Christian  life  as  an  ascent  from  star  to  star  was 
a  sublime  conception  of  artistic  genius.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  astronomy  the 
earth  was  the  centre  of  the  universe,  being  encom- 
passed by  a  zone  of  air  and  that  by  a  zone  of  fire. 
Beyond  the  sphere  of  fire  were  seven  planets, 
each  revolvinix  within  a  heaven  of  its  own.  These 
seven  encircling  heavens  were  those  of  the  Moon, 
Mercury,  Venus,  the  Sun,  Mars,  Jupiter,  and  Sa- 
turn ;  above  were  the  Fixed  Stars  ;  then  came  a 
crystalline  heaven,  originating  all  movement  and 
called  the  Primum  Mobile ;  and  surrounding  all 
was  the  Empyrean,  —  the  place  of  eternal,  un- 
changing peace. 

As  the  Catholic  Church  taught  that  there  were 
seven  virtues,  Dante  employed  the  seven  planets 
to  represent  them.  The  prevalent  belief  that 
the  earth  cast  a  shadow  on  the  first  three  planets 
enabled  him  to  mark  the  distinction  between  the 
three  theological  and  the  four  cardinal  virtues. 
It  is  only  vaguely  hinted  that  the  first  three  stars 


170  THE  TEACHINGS   OF  DANTE 

typify  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  since  these  virtues 
do  not  come  to  their  full  vigor  except  through 
moral  discipline  ;  ^  but  the  last  four  clearly  indi- 
cate the  cardinal  virtues  prudence,  fortitude, 
justice,  temperance.  Dante  believed  that  the 
penitent  having  begun  to  live  the  blessed  life 
by  faith,  hope,  and  love,  which  are  necessarily 
imperfect,  is  trained  by  the  moral  virtues  into 
robust  character.  After  the  perfected  character, 
and  resulting  from  it,  comes  a  completed  faith, 
hope,  and  love.  Having  done  the  will  he  can 
know  the  teaching ;  therefore  after  ascending 
through  these  seven  planets,  in  the  eighth  and 
ninth  spheres  Dante  learns  the  loftiest  truths 
revealed  to  the  faithful.  In  the  eighth  he  is 
taught  the  important  truths  of  redemption,  and 
in  the  ninth  the  celestial  mysteries.  Being  now 
faultless  in  character  and  creed,  the  tenth  heaven 
receives  him  into  the  ultimate  blessedness.  Thus 
the  astronomical  order  proved  a  most  serviceable 
framework  for  the  poet's  symbolism.^ 

^  Many  of  the  best  authorities  question  whether  the  first  three 
planets  have  any  reference  to  the  theological  virtues. 

^  I  wish  to  acknowledg'e  my  indebtedness  to  Dante'' s  Ten  HeavenSy 
by  Edmund  G.  Gardner,  M.  A.,  for  valuable  suggestions  regarding  the 
structure  and  significance  of  the  Paradiso. 


TWO    FUNDAMENTAL   TRUTHS 

The  prevailing  system  of  astronomy  also  en- 
abled one  so  adept  in  allegory  to  give  singularly 
interesting  expression  to  two  most  important 
truths.  The  three  shadowed  stars  suggest  that 
the  shadow  of  earthly  sins  falls  upon  Heaven,  in 
accordance  with  the  immemorial  faith  of  Christian 
thinkers  that  men  are  rewarded  in  the  hereafter 
according  to  their  fidelity  here.  This  shadow 
of  time  upon  eternity  has  no  other  influence, 
however,  than  to  affect  the  capacity  for  bliss, 
since  all  dweUing  in  the  celestial  sphere  are  per- 
fectly happy.  "  Everywhere  in  Heaven  is  Para- 
dise, although  the  grace  of  the  Supreme  Good 
rains  not  there  in  one  measure."  ^ 

The  four  unshadowed  planets  he  uses  to  teach 
that  there  are  many  ways  by  which  men  come  to 
God,  and  that  the  conditions  of  the  journey  pro- 
foundly influence  one's  destmy.  The  warrior  on 
the  battlefield  moves  by  as  direct  a  road  as  the 
scholar  in  his  study ;  the  just  ruler  is  as  sure  of 
salvation  as  the  wan  hermit  in  his  cell.     In  the 

1  Par.  iii.  88-90. 


172  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

Terrestrial  Paradise  four  beautiful  ones  covered 
Dante  with  their  arms  and  led  him  to  Beatrice  as 
she  stood  by  the  Griffon,  saying  :  "  Here  we  are 
nymphs  ;  in  Heaven  we  are  stars/'  ^  symbolizing 
that  the  four  cardinal  virtues  bring  one  into  the 
presence  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Christ.  The 
same  teaching  is  here  elaborated.  The  nymphs 
are  now  stars,  typical  of  the  virtues  which  must 
adorn  him  who  would  understand  the  redemptive 
and  celestial  mysteries  to  be  revealed  in  the 
eighth  and  ninth  heavens.  The  way  to  the  ulti- 
mate beatitude  is  along  this  four-fold  road,  and 
the  final  felicity  is  shaped  and  colored  by  that 
virtue  w^hich  is  most  characteristic.  Thus  time 
again  projects  itself  into  eternity,  and  the  condi- 
tion of  one's  mortal  warfare  affects  his  final 
destiny.  Each  of  the  four  greater  planets  stands 
for  one  of  the  cardinal  virtues  :  the  Sun  for  pru- 
dence ;  red  Mars  for  fortitude  ;  the  white  Jupiter 
for  spotless  justice ;  and  Saturn,  calm  and  cold, 
is  typical  of  temperance  or  contemplation.  The 
spirits  appear  in  that  planet  by  which  they  have 
been  most  influenced,  and  whose  virtue  has  been 
most  conspicuous  in  their  lives.  They  do  not 
dwell  there,  but  have  come  down  to  meet  Dante 
that  they  may  instruct  him.  In  the  sun  flame 
forth  the  spirits  of  the  men  of  understanding  and 
wisdom,  the  renowned  scholars,  and  distinguished 
theologians,   whose   presence    was    apparent   in 

'  Purg.  xxxi.  lOG. 


TWO  FUNDAMENTAL  TRUTHS  173 

that  great  orb  by  a  lustre  more  brilliant  than  its 
own ;  in  Mars  the  brave  warriors  of  the  faith 
range  themselves  into  a  fiery  cross,  the  symbol 
by  which  they  conquered  ;  in  Jupiter  just  rulers, 
moved  by  a  concordant  will,  even  as  a  single  heat 
comes  from  many  embers,  form  themselves  into  a 
colossal  eagle,  ensign  of  empire ;  and  in  Saturn 
there  shine  in  ineffable  light  the  clear,  radiant 
spirits  of  the  contemplative,  who  mount  to  the 
Highest  up  the  golden  stairway  of  meditation. 

It  was  clearly  in  Dante's  thought  to  teach  that 
these  four  virtues  differ  in  their  worth,  that  when 
one  passes  from  prudence  to  fortitude  he  comes 
nearer  to  God,  and  that  the  saint  rapt  in  mystic 
contemplation  of  divine  truth  is  closer  to  the 
ultimate  joy  than  the  just  ruler  upon  his  throne. 
This  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  deep-seated 
conviction  of  the  times,  in  this  respect  so  unlike 
our  own,  that  a  cloistered  life  of  ecstatic  com- 
munion with  God  is  holier  than  one  spent  in 
active  benevolence.  But  this  ascending  series  of 
virtues  involves  us  in  a  perplexity.  The  light  of 
Dante's  mind,  as  Beatrice  was  the  glory  of  his 
soul,  was  St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  He  is  appropri- 
ately placed  in  the  sun,  the  sphere  of  wisdom  and 
truth,  ranking  thus  below  Cacciaguida  in  Mars, 
and  William  of  Sicily  and  Rhipeus  the  Trojan 
in  Jupiter.  The  most  satisfactory  explanation  is 
that  though  justice  is  a  nobler  virtue  than  pru- 
dence and  the  just  ruler  walks  in  a  diviner  way 


174  THE  TI:ACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

than  the  profound  scholar,  yet  there  are  different 
degrees  of  glory  in  the  same  realm,  —  and  he 
who  shines  with  the  full  brightness  of  the  sphere 
of  the  sun  may  be  nearer  God,  and  more  filled 
with  the  light  eternal,  than  most  of  those  who 
inhabit  a  hiofher  circle.  That  there  are  various 
gradations  of  bliss  in  the  same  planet  is  declared 
by  Piccarda  when  she  says  that  Constance  "  glows 
with  all  the  light  of  our  sphere." 

The  grand  divisions  mentioned  are  marked  in 
the  poem  by  the  termination  of  the  earth's 
shadow,  —  a  long  prologue  also  prefacing  the 
ascent  to  the  sun,  —  by  the  ladder  of  gold  lead- 
ing to  the  eighth  and  ninth  heavens,  and  by  the 
essentially  different  character  of  the  Empyrean. 


VI 


LIGHT,    LIFE,    TRUTH 


Not  the  least  proof  of  Dante's  extraordinary 
creative  power  is  the  simpHcity  of  the  material 
which  he  uses  in  the  construction  of  this  immense 
spiritual  edifice.  Three  leading  ideas  only  he 
employs,  light,  life,  and  vision  of  truth.  Hallam 
finds  them  to  be  light,  music,  and  motion ;  ^  but 
music  occupies  only  a  subordinate  place,  while 
the  growing  knowledge  of  truth  is  an  organic 
thought.  Motion  is  but  another  term  for  life, 
and  by  rapidity  of  movement  Dante  would  sym- 
bolize abundant  life.  With  rare  artistic  skill 
and  spiritual  discernment  he  chose  his  materials ; 
the  religious  life  is  the  life  with  God,  and  God  is 
light,  life,  and  truth. 

No  poet  has  been  more  keenly  sensitive  to 
\i<rht  in  all  its  manifestations  than  he.  Lio-ht  it- 
self  dissociated  from  all  forms  afforded  him  dis- 
tinct pleasure,  and  was  to  him  a  rich  fountain  of 
poetic  suggestiveness.  The  serene  splendor  of 
the  stars  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  chief 
consolations  in  his  exiled  and  passion-swept  life. 

1  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  iv.  chap.  v. 


176  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

"  What ! '  exclaimed  he  in  his  letter  declining  to 
return  to  Florence  on  ignominious  terms,  '^  shall 
I  not  everywhere  enjoy  the  light  of  the  sun  and 
of  the  stars  ?  And  may  I  not  seek  and  contem- 
plate, in  every  corner  of  the  earth,  under  the  can- 
opy of  heaven,  consoling  and  delightful  truth?" 
Liofht  and  truth !  these  are  his  Heaven  in  this 
world  and  in  the  world  to  come.  Such  solace 
has  the  shining  of  the  stars  been  to  his  homesick 
heart  that  in  gratitude  he  ends  each  canticle  wdth, 
the  word  "  stars."  Hell  is  to  be  shut  out  from 
this  calm  radiance ;  the  beginning  of  hope  and 
purity  is  to  come  "  forth  to  see  again  the  stars ; " 
the  symbol  of  Purgatory  is  the  morning  and 
evening  light ;  Heaven  is  to  mount  from  star  to 
star,  and  its  gradations  are  known  by  the  increas- 
ing glory  of  the  light,  while  the  bliss  supreme 
is  to  fix  his  eyes  on  the  Fountam  of  Eternal 
Light.  Dean  Church  has  finely  pointed  out  how 
siofnificant  and  beautiful  lio;ht  was  to  Dante's 
passionate  soul,  and  how  he  studied  it  in  all  its 
forms.  "  Light  everywhere  —  in  the  sky  and 
earth  and  sea  —  in  the  star,  the  flames,  the  lamp, 
the  gems  —  broken  in  the  water,  reflected  from 
the  mirror,  transmitted  pure  through  the  glass, 
or  coloured  throuo^h  the  edo'e  of  the  fractured 
emerald  —  dimmed  in  the  mist,  the  halo,  the  deep 
water  —  streamhig  through  the  rent  cloud,  glow- 
ing in  the  coal,  quivering  in  the  lightning,  flash- 
ing in  the  topaz  and  the  ruby,  veiled  behind  the 


LIGHT,  LIFE,  TRUTH  177 

pure  alabaster,  mellowed  and  clouding  itself  in 
the  pearl  —  light  contrasted  with  shadow  — 
shading  off  and  copying  itself  in  the  double  rain- 
bow, hke  voice  and  echo  —  hght  seen  within 
light  —  light  from  every  source,  and  in  all  its 
shapes,  illuminates,  irradiates,  gives  glory  to  the 
Commedia."  ^  Small  wonder  is  it  that  in  his 
thought  Heaven  is  a  place  of  unshadowed,  eternal, 
ever  deepening  light.  The  more  joyous  the 
spirits  are  the  brighter  their  splendor,  which 
glows  with  a  new  effulgence  as  their  love  mani- 
fests itself.  Justinian  is  especially  honored  by 
being  twined  with  a  double  glory. 

Motion,  indicative  of  the  abundant  life  Christ 
promised  to  give,  is  also  employed  to  make 
known  the  different  degrees  of  blessedness.  Ac- 
cording to  Aristotle  natural  motion  is  either  in  a 
right  line,  in  a  circle,  or  mixed.  The  circular 
is  the  perfect  form  ;  it  alone  is  continuous,  and 
is  that  of  the  Prime-Mover.  The  impulse  of 
motion  is  love,  and  the  cause  of  love  is  vision  ; 
therefore  the  spirits  move  more  or  less  rapidly 
in  the  measure  of  their  inward  vision  of  God. 
From  the  Seraphim  downward,  all  the  angels, 
heavens,  and  ranks  of  the  redeemed  are  woven 
in  one  cosmic  dance,  and  the  celerity  of  their 
movement  is  always  determined  by  the  clearness 
of  their  sio^ht  into  the  nature  of  the  Eternal 
Light.  The  mystic  dances  are  Dante's  method 
1  Dante  and  other  Essays,  p.  164. 


178  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

of  expressing  joy  in  the  Divine  Will,  and  even 
Peter  Damian,  whirling  like  a  millstone  on  its 
axis,  is  not  as  ridiculous  as  he  seems,  for  thus 
only  can  he  express  the  ardor  of  his  love,  and 
the  energy  of  his  exultant  life.  In  thus  describ- 
ing a  palpitant  world  of  ceaseless  activity,  Dante 
has  anticipated  the  modern  discovery  of  a  uni- 
verse throbbing  with  the  perpetual  whirl  of 
atoms. 

But  the  most  commanding  idea  of  all  is  vision 
of  the  truth.  It  is  a  somewhat  difficult  task  for 
us  to  enter  into  perfect  intellectual  sympathy 
with  Dante  in  his  confidence  in  the  power  of 
the  mind  to  know  the  truth.  By  a  strange  para- 
dox the  present  generation  has  learned  so  much, 
and  accumulated  such  a  fabulous  Avealth  of 
knowledge  that  our  minds  quail  in  the  presence 
of  their  riches  and  distrust  their  power  to 
know.  We  delisfht  in  the  investis^ation  of 
truth,  but  lack  faith  in  our  ability  to  know  it. 
The  word  that  is  oftenest  upon  our  lips  is  Life, 
while  the  supreme  word  of  the  Middle  Ages  was 
Truth.  The  modern  feeling  is  well  expressed 
by  Richard  Watson  Gilder  :  — 

"  I  know  wliat  Life  is,  have  caught  sight  of  Truth : 
My  heart  is  dead  within  me  ;  a  thick  pall 
Darkens  the  midday  Sun."  ^ 

Dante  would  have  said  that  the  pall  and  darkness 
resulted    from  our  dim  apprehension  of    truth. 

1  Five  Books  of  Song,  p.  42. 


LIGHT,  LIFE,  TRUTH  179 

The  Middle  Ages  believed  implicitly  that  man 
can  know,  and  that  perfect  happiness  consists 
in  perfect  knowledge  of  the  Ultimate  Reality. 
The  vision  of  truth  stimulates  the  ardors  of  the 
mind,  so  that  love  is  proportioned  to  the  clear- 
ness of  sight  into  the  truth.  God  is  the  Truth 
behind  all  phenomena,  the  approach  to  Him  is 
through  the  truth ;  in  knowing  the  truth  and 
resting  in  it  the  mind  has  peace ;  to  the  beauty 
of  truth  the  affections  of  the  heart  respond ; 
and  through  the  truth  divine  power  comes  into 
the  will. 

"  Well  I  perceive  that  never  sated  is 
Our  intellect  unless  Truth  illume  it, 
Beyond  which  nothing  true  expands  itself. 
It  rests  therein,  as  a  wild  beast  in  his  lair, 
When  it  attains  it  ;  and  it  can  attain  it  ; 
If  not,  then  each  desire  would  frustrate  be."  ^ 

There  are  three  writers  in  the  Bible  who  make 
religion  to  consist  in  a  knowledge  of  God ;  the 
author  of  Deuteronomy,  Hosea,  and  St.  John ; 
with  them  Dante  is  in  accord. 

Holding  such  a  noble  and  scriptural  concep- 
tion of  the  nature  and  goal  of  the  spiritual  life, 
Dante  naturally  traces  its  development  by  pro- 
gressive knowledge  of  the  truth,  and  makes  the 
glories  of  Heaven  to  consist  in  the  beauty  of 
truth  "  enkindled  along  the  stairway  of  the 
Eternal  palace." 

Thus  the  vision  of  truth  is  the  structural  idea 

I  Par.  iv.  124-128. 


180  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

of  Paradise.  Its  glory  is  the  splendor  of  truth, 
its  progress  is  the  enlarging  perception  of  truth, 
and  its  blessedness  is  the  ardent  love  inflamed  by 
truth.  By  a  poetic  conception  of  peerless 
beauty  Dante  measures  his  ascent,  not  by  con- 
scious motion,  but  by  the  radiance  on  the  face 
of  Beatrice.  From  the  very  first  her  glory 
dazzled  his  eyes ;  as  they  mounted  upward  she 
irradiated  him  with  a  smile  such  as  would  make 
a  man  in  the  fire  happy,  and  finally  her  beauty 
became  so  intolerable  that  she  durst  not  smile 
lest  his  sight  be  shattered  as  a  bough  by  the 
lightning,  until  his  eyes  were  strengthened  by 
having  beheld  Christ  and  his  triumphant  fol- 
lowers. 

He  finds  that  the  merits  of  the  redeemed  de- 
termine the  measure  of  their  penetration  into 
truth,  and  that  the  love  born  of  sight  gives  them 
their  sphere  of  blessedness. 

His  own  power  of  vision  grows  stronger  as  he 
ascends.  At  first  he  beholds  the  blessed  ones 
as  mirrored  semblances,  then  as  flames  of  fire 
and  orbs  of  light,  whose  real  forms  cannot  be 
seen.  When  he  had  mounted  so  high  that  the 
vivid  light  enswathed  hun  and  by  its  own  ef- 
fulgence blinded  him,  his  mind  seemed  to  issue 
out  of  itself  and  was  rekindled  with  a  new 
power  of  vision.  Seeing  before  him  a  stream 
of  light  like  a  river,  he  bathed  his  eyes  in  it ; 
then    did    he   look    no    more    through    a   glass 


LIGHT,  LIFE,  TRUTH  181 

darkly,  but  face  to  face.  Beatrice  —  revealed 
truth  —  is  no  longer  needed  ;  St.  Bernard  — 
type  of  intuitive  insight  —  takes  her  place,  and 
Dante  reaches  the  final  bliss  by  gazing  with 
unquenched  sight  into  the  Fountain  of  Light 
Intellectual  full  of  Love. 

God  is  Lightj  God  is  Life,  God  is  Truth  ;  the 
spiritual  life  is  to  know  God,  and  to  receive  His 
light,  life,  and  truth.  These  were  the  only  ele- 
ments out  of  which  the  divine  poet  could  con- 
struct his  stately  Paradise. 


VII 

TRUTHS  TAUGHT  IN  THE  LOWER  HEAVENS 

As  the  reliofious  life  is  nourished  and  de- 
veloped  by  its  ever  deepening  insight  into  truth^ 
Dante  undoubtedly  sought  to  crowd  his  succes- 
sive spheres  with  weighty  spiritual  teachings  to 
encourage  and  guide  men  who  were  seeking  to 
climb  — 

"  the  great  world's  altar  stairs 
That  slope  thro'  darkness  up  to  God." 

a.    The  shadow  of  earth 

In  the  infra-solar  heavens  —  the  Moon,  Mer- 
cury, and  Venus  —  certain  basal  and  preliminary 
truths  are  set  forth  which  are  of  superlative  im- 
portance to  those  entering  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
The  most  prominent  teaching  in  these  shadow- 
dimmed  stars  is,  as  has  already  been  indicated, 
that  the  effects  of  the  earthly  life  reach  into 
the  heavenly,  and  that  the  consequences  of  time 
extend  through  eternity.  Each  goes  to  his  own 
place  and  feels  more  or  less  of  the  eternal  breath 
according  to  the  capacity  of  his  soul  and  the 
merit  of  his  life.     While  this  thought  meets  us 


TRUTHS  TAUGHT  IN  THE  LOWER  HEAVENS  183 

at  the  very  threshold  of  Heaven  it  is  constantly 
recurring,  Dante  taxing  his  genius  to  its  limit  to 
vary  the  expression  of  it.  In  four  principal  ways 
he  discloses  the  inequalities  of  bliss  :  the  sphere 
in  which  the  spirits  appear,  their  quickness  of 
movement,  the  glory  they  radiate,  and  the  clear- 
ness of  their  vision  into  the  Eternal  Light.  J 

b.    God's  toill  is  our  peace 

With  fervent  enthusiasm,  at  the  very  begin- 
ning of  the  upward  flight,  Dante  seeks  to  make 
it  clear  that  contentment  with  one's  lot,  growing 
out  of  perfect  acquiescence  in  the  will  of  God, 
is  indispensable  to  the  religious  life.  The  first 
spirit  he  meets  in  the  very  lowest  sphere  is 
Piccarda.  He  asks  her  if  she  is  happy  here  and 
desires  no  higher  place.  "  With  those  other 
shades  she  first  smiled  a  little :  then  answered 
me  so  glad  that  she  seemed  to  burn  in  the  first 
fire  of  love ;  '  Brother,  virtue  of  charity  quiets 
our  will,  and  makes  us  wish  only  for  that  which 
we  have,  and  for  aught  else  makes  us  not  thirsty. 
Should  we  desire  to  be  higher  up  our  desires 
would  be  discordant  with  the  will  of  Him  who 
assigns  us  this  place,  and  His  Will  is  our  peace.' 
Clear  was  it  then  to  me,  how  everywhere  in 
heaven  is  Paradise,  although  the  grace  of  the 
Supreme  Good  rains  not  there  in  one  measure."  ^ 
Indeed,  God's  justice  in  thus  adjusting  the  wages 

1  Par.  iii.  67  £E. 


184  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

to  the  desert  is  part  of  the  joy  of  the  blessed 
ones.  Dante  utters  no  truth  more  insistently 
than  that  the  human  will  must  be  perfectly  sub- 
missive to  the  will  of  God.  "  Nay,  it  is  essential 
in  this  blessed  existence  to  hold  ourselves  within 
the  divine  will."  ^ 

In  the  heaven  of  Jupiter  the  spirits  of  the 
Just,  speaking  through  the  voice  of  the  eagle, 
exclaim,  "  For  our  will  is  perfected  in  this  good, 
that  what  God  wills  us,  we  also  will."  ^  After  he 
has  mounted  from  star  to  star,  has  looked  into 
the  deepest  light,  and  has  learned  all  that  the 
celestial  realm  can  teach  him,  with  beautiful 
simplicity  of  expression  he  sums  up  the  effect 
of  all  this  glory  and  truth  upon  his  soul  by  de- 
claring that  it  has  made  his  heart  and  wdll  one 
wdth  God.  "  But  now  my  desire  and  my  will, 
like  a  wheel  which  evenly  is  moved,  the  Love  was 
turning  which  moves  the  sun  and  the  other 
stars."  ^ 

This  is  the  summmn  honum.  Beyond  this  life 
has  no  beatittide,  and  greater  truth  than  this 
the  eager  prophet  did  not  urge  in  his  "  medi- 
aeval miracle  of  song." 

c.   The   influence  of  the   stars 

In  the  three  shadowed  stars  Dante  gives  great 
prominence    to    the    influences    of    the    heavens 

1  Par.  iii.  79,  80.  2  p^r.  xx.  137,  138. 

3  Par.  xxxiii.  143-145. 


TKUTHS  TAUGHT  IN  THE  LOWER  HEAVENS  185 

on  the  genius  and  destiny  of  men.  To  us  this 
seems  quaint  enough  and  almost  childish,  but  to 
him  it  was  of  the  first  importance.  As  soon  as 
man  began  to  think  he  asked  himself  why  chil- 
dren of  the  same  parents  differ  radically  in 
disposition,  talents,  and  career.  Being  as  igno- 
rant as  we  of  the  law  of  variation,  it  was  natural 
for  him  to  attribute  the  cause  to  those  mysterious 
stars  that  so  absorbed  his  wonderinsr  mind.  Since 
the  little  light  they  gave  did  not  account  for 
their  being  placed  in  the  sky,  what  could  be  the 
purpose  of  their  strange  movements  and  marvel- 
ous conjunctions,  but  to  exercise  some  potent 
influence  upon  mankind  ?  Surely  "  the  gener- 
ated nature  would  always  make  its  path  like  its 
progenitors,"  sons  would  be  exact  copies  of 
their  fathers,  did  not  "  revolving  nature,  which  is 
the  seal  of  the  mortal  wax,  perform  its  act  well." 
In  common  with  his  time,  Dante  found  two  form- 
ative elements  in  man.  Nature  and  Will.  One's 
nature  is  moulded  by  the  stars,  but  the  will  is 
free,  either  to  resist  or  consent  to  natural  tend- 
encies. The  good  and  evil  qualities  we  refer  to 
inherited  blood,  Dante  ascribed  to  the  influences 
which  the  moving  heavens  sent  down.  Yet  we  fail 
to  do  him  justice  if  we  do  not  constantly  bear  in 
mind  that  the  stars  to  him  were  not  soulless  orbs 
of  fire.  He  believed  that  over  each  of  the  nine 
heavens  presided  one  of  the  nine  orders  of  angelic 
beings,  who,  dwelling  in  the  Empyrean,  looked 


186  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

into  the  face  of  God.  According  to  the  clear- 
ness of  their  vision  they  glowed  with  love,  and 
the  ardor  of  their  love  determined  the  swiftness 
of  their  movement.  The  life  they  received  from 
the  immediate  presence  of  God  they  radiated 
down  upon  the  heavens  over  which  they  ruled, 
and  the  heavens  sent  the  vital  beams  to  mortals. 
Thus  the  universe  became  palpitant  with  Hfe  of 
God  and  flooded  with  his  light. 

Shelley,  who  owes  much  to  Dante,  has  beauti- 
fully rendered  the  poet's  thought  in  language 
which  w^ell  expresses  our  modern  faith,  — 

"  the  one  Spirit's  plastic  stress 
Sweeps  through  th'  dull  dense  world,  compelling  there 
All  new  successions  to  the  forms  they  wear  ; 
Torturing  th'  unwilling  dross  that  checks  its  flight 
To  its  own  likeness,  as  each  mass  may  bear  ; 
And  bursting  in  its  beauty  and  its  might 
From  trees  and  beasts  and  men  into  Heaven's  light."  ^ 

This  conception  of  a  vast  system  w^here  every 
order  of  the  celestial  hierarchy  looks  up  to  God 
for  power  and  life,  and  reflects  the  divine  en- 
ergy downward  through  the  spheres  as  light, 
motion,  and  spiritual  influences,  making  the  crea- 
ture's vision  of  the  Eternal  Truth  the  medium  of 
God's  communication  of  Himself  to  a  universe 
that  everywdiere  throbs  with  His  Hfe  and  is  every- 
where draw^n  tow^ard  Him,  is  not  only  one  of 
sublime  religious  significance,  but  is  a  thought 
august  and  majestic  quite  beyond  the  powder  of 
speech. 

^  Adonais,  xliii. 


TRUTHS  TAUGHT  IN  THE  LOWER  HEAVENS  187 

d.  The  freedom  of  the  will 
Great  as  the  emphasis  is  which  he  places  upon 
these  supernal  influences  —  divers  virtues  making 
divers  alloy,  so  that  some  natures  have  more  of 
celestial  brio;"litness  than  others  —  Dante  never 
for  a  moment  suffers  them  to  obscure  his  superb 
assertion  of  the  untrammeled  freedom  of  the 
will.  This  lifts  man  out  of  the  tyranny  of  the 
natural  order  and  makes  him  a  supernatural  be- 
ing, akin  to  God  and  master  of  his  own  fate. 

"  The  greatest  gift  that  in  his  largess  God 

Creating  made,  and  unto  his  own  goodness 
Nearest  conformed,  and  that  which  he  doth  prize 
Most  highly,  is  the  freedom  of  the  will 

Wherewith  the  creatures  of  intelligence 
Both  all  and  only  were  and  are  endowed."  ^ 

This  is  sovereign  and  is  comjielled  by  no  external 
force.  "  If  all  Hell,  all  the  world,  even  all  the 
hosts  of  Heaven,"  says  Hugo  of  St.  Victor,  "  were 
to  come  too;ether  and  combine  in  this  one  thinof, 
they  could  not  force  a  single  consent  from  free 
will  in  anything  not  willed."  And  Dante  em- 
phatically declares :  "  Ye  who  are  living  refer 
every  cause  upward  to  the  heavens  only,  as  if 
they  of  necessity  moved  all  things  with  themselves. 
If  this  were  so  free  will  would  be  destroyed  in 
you,  and  there  would  be  no  justice  in  having  joy 
for  good  and  grief  for  evil.  The  heavens  ini- 
tiate your  movements ;  I  do  not  say  all  of  them  \ 

1  Par,  V.  19-25. 


188  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

but,  supposing  that  I  said  it,  light  for  good  and 
for  evil  is  given  to  you  ;  and  free  will,  which,  if 
it  endure  fatigue  in  the  first  battles  with  the  hea- 
vens, afterwards,  if  it  be  well  nurtured,  conquers 
everything.  To  a  greater  force,  and  to  a  better 
nature,  ye,  free,  are  subjected,  and  that  creates 
the  mind  in  you,  which  the  heavens  have  not  in 
their  charge.  Therefore  if  the  present  world 
goes  astray,  in  you  is  the  cause,  in  you  let  it  be 
sought."  ^ 

1  Purg.  xvi.  67-84. 


VIII 

THE  TRUTHS  DECLARED  IN  THE  UNSHADOWED 

PLANETS 

In  the  four  succeeding  heavens,  whose  planets, 
—  the  Sun,  Mars,  Jupiter,  and  Saturn,  —  repre- 
sent the  four  cardinal  virtues,  Dante  beautifully 
symbolizes  three  structural  truths.  He  evidently 
would  teach  that  the  reli2:ious  life  must  be  emi- 
nently  virtuous,  that  moral  character  influences 
destiny,  and  that  fideHty  to  one's  endowments  and 
duty  is  the  gate  by  which  he  enters  into  eternal 
life.  That  we  have  come  upon  a  distinct  phase 
of  thought  is  noted  by  a  prologue  of  rare  beauty, 
remarkable  for  its  compendious  and  poetic  expres- 
sion of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  the  influence 
of  the  heavens,  and  his  own  sense  of  mission 
which  wrested  from  the  poet  all  other  care.  The 
truths  promulgated  in  these  four  heavens  partake 
of  the  nature  of  the  sphere  in  which  they  are 
taught. 

a.    The  Su7i 

In  the  Sun  occur  the  justly  famous  narratives 
of   the  lives  of   St.   Francis    and    St.  Dominic, 


190  THE   TEACHINGS   OF  DAXTE 

which  in  comprehensiveness,  beauty,  and  truth- 
fuhiess  have  never  been  surpassed.  In  making  a 
Dominican  recount  the  work  of  St.  Francis, 
"  who  rose  a  Sun  upon  the  world,"  and  a  Fran- 
ciscan tell  the  story  of  St.  Dominic,  ^"who 
through  wisdom  was  a  splendor  of  cherubic 
light,"  Dante  sought  to  teach  to  the  two  orders  a 
lesson  of  mutual  respect.  Nevertheless,  there  is 
in  this  sphere  some  profitless  and  arid  exposition. 
It  seems  strange  that  wdien  Dante  meets  his  great 
master,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  he  makes  the  sage 
speak  so  largely  of  what  to  us  seem  unimportant 
scholastic  subtilties.  Even  his  prudential  counsels 
seem  trivial  compared  with  what  the  profoundest, 
most  capacious  mind  of  the  Middle  Ages  might 
be  supposed  to  say. 

The  truth  that  in  this  heaven  receives  most 
prominence  is  that  of  the  Trinity.  In  beginning 
his  description  Dante  states  the  dogma  in  a  pas- 
sage of  exquisite  grace :  the  supreme  object  of 
contemplation  is  the  Father,  "looking  upon  his 
Son  with  the  Love  which  the  one  and  the  other 
eternally  breathe  forth."  ^  The  dances  used  are  ex- 
pressions of  the  same  truth  :  "  those  burning  suns 
circled  three  times  around  us ;  "  it  is  given  voice 
in  song :  "  the  One  and  Two  and  Three  which 
ever  Uves,  and  ever  reigns  in  Three  and  Two  and 
One,  uncircumscribed  and  circumscribing  every- 
thing, was  thrice  sung  by  each  of  those  spirits 

1  Par.  X.  1,  2. 


UNSHADOWED  PLANETS  191 

with  such  a  melody  that  for  every  merit  it  would 
be  a  just  reward."  ^  In  the  realm  of  the  wise 
whose  pursuit  is  truth,  it  is  fitting  that  the  ulti- 
mate truth  of  the  one  God  in  three  persons,  which 
is  the  object  of  the  beatific  vision,  should  be 
given  commanding  importance. 

In  this  planet  there  is  a  fine  description  of  a 
moment  when  gratitude  to  God  overcame  his  de- 
light in  truth. 

"And  Beatrice  began  :  '  Give  thanks,  give  thanks 
Unto  the  Sun  of  Angels,  who  to  this 
Sensible  one  has  raised  thee  by  his  grace  !  * 

Never  was  heart  of  mortal  so  disposed 
To  worship,  nor  to  give  itself  to  God 
With  all  its  gratitude  was  it  so  ready, 

As  at  those  words  did  I  myself  become  ; 

And  all  my  love  was  so  absorbed  in  Him, 
That  in  oblivion  Beatrice  was  eclipsed. 

Nor  this  displeased  her  ;  but  slie  smiled  at  it 
So  that  the  splendor  of  her  laughing  eyes 
My  single  mind  on  many  things  divided."  ^ 

There  is  another  very  satisfactory  passage 
which  perhaps  indicates  that  even  in  his  day  a 
scholar  must  leave  a  vast  host  of  authors  unread. 
This  excess  of  riches  overcame  him,  but  his  con- 
solation was  that  he  held  the  truth,  even  though 
he  could  not  trace  it  through  many  books.  Bea- 
trice and  the  poet  were  in  the  centre  of  tw^o  circles 
of  sempiternal  flames,  representing  learned  theo- 
logians who  had  been  his  teachers. 

"  And  lo  !  all  around  abont  of  equal  brightness 
Arose  a  lustre  over  what  was  there, 

*  Par.  xiv.  28-33.  2  Pay.  x.  53-63. 


192  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

Like  an  horizon  that  is  clearing  up. 

And  as  at  rise  of  early  eve  begin 

Along  the  welkin  new  appearances, 

So  that  the  sight  seems  real  and  unreal. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  new  subsistences 

Began  there  to  be  seen,  and  make  a  circle 
Outside  the  other  two  circumferences. 

O  very  sparkling  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 

How  sudden  and  incandescent  it  became 
Unto  my  eyes,  that  vanquished  bore  it  not ! 

But  Beatrice  so  beautiful  and  smiling 

Appeared  to  me,  that  with  the  other  sights 

That  followed  not  my  memory  I  must  leave  her."  ^ 

b.  Mars 

Fixing  his  eyes  upon  Beatrice  he  is  "trans- 
ferred to  higher  salvation/'  the  ruddy  planet 
Mars,  where  in  answer  to  his  sacrifice  of  thanks- 
giving he  saw,  constellated  in  its  fiery  depths,  a 
white  cross,  flashing  with  the  glowing  spirits  of 
old  warriors  of  the  faith  ;  through  the  cross  there 
swept  a  melody  "  which  rapt  me,  not  distinguish- 
ing the  hymn."  Mars  is  the  star  of  Fortitude, 
the  cross  is  the  symbol  of  the  Christian  warfare, 
and  rapturous  is  the  joy  of  faithful  service.  Here 
Dante  meets  his  crusader  ancestor,  Cacciaguida, 
who  denounces  the  luxury  of  Florence  and  urges 
the  necessity  of  returning  to  the  chaste  and  val- 
iant simplicity  of  former  days.  In  their  conver- 
sation the  character  of  the  poet  is  brought  out 
in  strong  colors.  Being  in  the  planet  of  Forti- 
tude, he  feels  himself  "  four-square  against  the 
1  Par.  xiv.  67-81. 


UNSHADOWED  PLANETS  193 

blows  of  cliance  "  and  asks  that  his  destiny  be 
revealed  to  him.  The  flaming  spirit  of  the  war- 
rior, looking  into  that  mirror  where  past  and 
future  are  reflected,  foretells  Dante's  exile. 
"  Thou  shalt  leave  everything  most  dearly  loved. 
Thou  shalt  prove  how  the  bread  of  others  savors 
of  salt,  and  how  the  descending  and  the  mount- 
ing of  another's  stairs  is  a  hard  path.  And  that 
which  will  heaviest  weigh  upon  thy  shoulders 
will  be  the  evil  and  foolish  company  with  which 
into  this  valley  thou  shalt  fall ;  which  all  un- 
grateful, all  senseless,  and  impious  will  turn 
against  thee,  —  so  that  it  will  be  seemly  for  thee 
to  have  made  thyself  a  party  by  thyself."  ^  Yet, 
bitter  as  these  wanderings  were  to  be,  the  fame 
that  was  to  come  would  more  than  atone  for  all 
sufferings,  for  "  even  as  sweet  harmony  comes  to 
the  ear  from  an  organ,  comes  to  my  sight  the 
time  that  is  preparing  for  thee."  ^ 

In  the  spirit  with  which  he  first  meets  this 
announcement  of  his  wrongs  this  stern  prophet 
seems  to  fall  somewhat  below  the  moral  stature 
of  his  predecessors  who  for  truth's  sake  forgot 
themselves.  His  consolations  are  not  as  lofty  as 
one  could  wish.  The  first  comforting^  thouo^ht 
that  came  to  his  mind  was  that  he  had  a  "  future 
far  beyond  the  punishment  of  their  perfidies ;  "  ^ 
then  came  a  fear  lest  his  messaof-e  have  "  a  savor 
keenly  sour,  and  if  I  am  a  timid  friend  to  truth 

1  Par.  xvii.  55-69.  ^  ^^^  43.45^  a  lud,  98,  99. 


194  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

I  fear  to  lose  life  among  those  who  will  call  this 
time  the  olden."  ^  Nevertheless  he  will  make 
the  "  whole  vision  manifest,  and  let  the  scratch- 
in  n  he  even  where  the  itch  is,  for  if  at  first  taste 
[his]  vision  shall  he  molestful,  afterwards,  when 
it  shall  be  digested,  it  will  leave  vital  nourish- 
ment." "  One  can  scarcely  conceive  of  Isaiah  or 
Paul  being  so  sohcitous  for  personal  renown. 
They  would  be  content  to  be  forgotten,  if  the 
truth  they  proclaimed  should  be  received.  For 
a  moment  the  passion  of  the  artist  for  enduring 
fame  seems  to  overcome  the  self -forgetful  conse- 
cration of  the  prophet.  And  yet  it  may  be  said 
in  behalf  of  Dante  that  the  permanency  of  his 
work  depended  on  the  permanency  of  his  poem. 
But  he  seeks  a  nobler  solace  when  his  guide 
said  :  "  Change  thy  thought ;  think  that  I  am 
near  to  Him  who  lifts  the  burden  from  every 
wrong."  ^  Turning  to  her  holy  eyes,  all  present 
ambition  vanished  ;  "  again  beholding  her,  my 
affection  was  free  from  every  other  desire."  ^  In 
his  consciousness  of  the  sovereignty  of  God  and 
in  his  passionate  love  of  truth,  the  bitterness  of 
exile  is  at  last  forgotten.  Beatrice  never  seems 
so  fair  to  him  as  now,  and,  vanquished  by  her 
smile,  he  must  needs  be  gently  reminded  that 
joy  is  in  imitating  the  valor  of  the  brave  as  well 
as  in  the  contemplation  of  truth,  for  "  not  only 

1  Par.  xvii.  117-120.  ^  m^^  128-132. 

8  Par.  xviii.  4-6.  ■*  Ihid.  14,  15. 


UNSHADOWED  PLANETS  195 

in  my  eyes  is  Paradise."  ^  After  this  Dante 
seems  to  have  passed  beyond  all  thought  of  per- 
sonal fame.  As  he  approaches  the  Ultimate  Sal- 
vation the  glory  of  the  laurel  shrivels  in  the  blaze 
of  the  divine  splendor,  and  his  fervent  prayer  to 
the  Supreme  Light  is,  "  make  my  tongue  so  pow- 
erful that  it  may  be  able  to  leave  one  single 
spark  of  Thy  glory  for  the  future  people."  ^  This 
frame  of  mind  became  habitual  in  his  later  years, 
for  in  his  poem  to  Giovanni  Quirino,  probably 
the  last  he  ever  wrote,  he  says  :  — 

"  So  when  I  contemplate  the  great  reward 
To  which  our  God  has  called  the  Christian  seed, 
I  long  for  nothing  else  but  only  this." 

c.  Jupiter 

Turning  toward  Beatrice  he  beheld  her  eyes 
so  clear  and  joyous  and  her  countenance  so  pale 
that  he  knew  they  had  ascended  to  the  whiteness 
of  Jupiter.  This  is  the  star  of  Justice,  and  holy 
splendors  at  his  coming  arranged  themselves  in 
a  sentence  —  the  commandinof  truth  this  realm 
delivers  to  the  world  —  "  Love  righteousness,  ye 
that  be  judges  of  the  earth  ;  "  ^  then  instantly 
more  than  a  thousand  lights  form  the  image  of 
an  eagle,  symbol  of  empire  and  justice.  This 
heaven  being  the  source  of  all  earthly  justice,  here 
Dante  would  teach  that  the  authority  of  the  Em- 
pire as  well  as  the  Church  is  from  God.     Under 

1  Par.  xviii.  21.     2  Par.  xxxiii.  70-72.     s  Par.  xviii.  91-93. 


196  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

the  ideal  Roman  Empire  there  is  individual  liberty, 
each  spirit  flashing  with  its  own  light ;  there  is 
also  perfect  unity,  for  one  song  goes  up  from  the 
concordant  spirits  in  the  eagle.  This  unity  of 
all  men  in  the  single  State  as  well  as  in  a  united 
Church,  which  was  one  of  the  sovereign  themes 
of  Dante's  life,  he  expresses  again  and  again  in 
similes  of  rare  beauty.  It  is  like  the  single  heat 
coming  from  many  embers ;  it  is  as  the  one  odor 
that  exhales  from  many  flowers. 

The  further  teaching  of  this  sphere  is  that 
God's  judgments  are  past  finding  out,  for  although 
Dante  hungers  from  his  great  fast,  not  having 
found  equity  here  on  earth,  he  learns  that  mortal 
vision  penetrates  the  eternal  justice  no  further 
than  the  eye  can  peer  into  the  sea.  But  as  the 
little  stork  looks  up  to  the  mother  bird  and  takes 
the  food  she  gives,  so  he  gratefully  and  wdtli  do- 
cihty  receives  the  judgments  of  God  as  just  and 
righteous. 

d.    Saturn 

Fastening  his  eyes  again  upon  Beatrice  he 
rises  to  the  seventh  splendor  —  the  cold,  serene 
Saturn,  symbol  of  the  fourth  cardinal  virtue, 
Temperance,  whose  benign  influences  continually 
check  his  impulsiveness.  This  lucent  star,  so 
high  and  far  withdrawn  from  the  world,  is  also 
typical  of  contemplation,  and  contains  the  radi- 
ant souls  of  the  contemplative,  who,  withdrawing 


UNSHADOWED  PLANETS  197 

from  temporal  affairs,  gave  themselves  to  such 
profound  meditation  of  spiritual  realities  that 
thought  changed  to  vision,  and  rapturous  intui- 
tion beheld  things  not  lawful  to  utter.  Here 
no  music  is  heard,  and  Beatrice  dares  not  smile 
because  the  glory  and  sweetness  of  the  truth,  as 
revealed  to  devout  and  perfect  contemplation,  is 
intolerable  to  those  proficient  in  the  more  active 
virtues.  Here  is  disclosed  the  golden  ladder  up 
which  thought  can  mount  to  higher  heavens,  so 
effulgent  with  descending  splendors  that  Dante 
conceived  that  all  the  stars  of  heaven  were  there 
diffused.  Being  in  the  realm  of  deep  brooding 
abstraction,  his  questions  are  naturally  upon 
themes  which  engage  the  speculative  thinkers  in 
the  cloister,  and  he  learns  that  even  the  Seraph 
who  has  his  eye  most  fixed  on  God  cannot  fathom 
the  way  of  the  eternal  purpose  in  election ;  that 
the  sword  of  heaven  cuts  not  in  haste,  nor  slow, 
except  to  mortal  eye ;  and  that  the  schoolman's 
passionate  yearning  to  behold  the  Supreme  Es- 
sence is  impossible  of  satisfaction  until  spiritual 
vision  is  perfected. 

Here  also  the  concordant  love  of  redeemed  hu- 
manity and  the  ease  with  which  they  cooperate 
and  organize,  in  contrast  with  the  selfish  indivi- 
dualism of  earth,  already  taught  in  the  preced- 
ing stars  by  the  flaming  circles,  the  cross,  and 
the  eagle,  are  represented  by  the  lucent  splendors 
upon  the  golden  ladder  becoming  more  beautiful 
with  mutual  rays. 


IX 


THE    TWO    HEAVENS    OF    REDEMPTIVE   AND 
CELESTIAL    MYSTERIES 

As  the  celestial  hosts  like  a  whirlwind  passed 
up  the  ladder  Dante  followed,  for  only  by  scal- 
ing the  height  of  spiritnal  vision  can  he  pene- 
trate the  mysteries  of  Paradise.  This  ladder 
marks  the  ascent  to  a  new  realm  of  thought  and 
experience,  and  makes  as  clear  a  division  in  the 
poem  as  did  the  termination  of  earth's  shadow. 
The  four  planetary  heavens  just  traversed  have 
revealed  the  way  of  life  through  the  practice  of 
the  four  cardinal  virtues }  but  virtue  leads  to 
truth,  he  who  doetli  the  will  shall  know  of  the 
doctrine,  is  Dante's  continuous  affirmation.  Hav- 
ing walked  in  the  way  he  can  know  the  deep  mys- 
teries ;  therefore,  in  the  two  succeeding  heavens 
are  set  forth  the  truths  of  redemption.  In  the 
eighth,  that  of  the  Fixed  Stars,  are  made  known 
those  saving  facts  and  forces  which  intimately 
touch  human  life :  in  the  ninth,  the  crystalline, 
heavenly  mysteries  are  revealed,  such  as  God's 
way  in  creation  and  the  nature  of  angels.  In 
the  Terrestrial  Paradise  the  four  cardinal  virtues 


THE  TWO  HEAVENS  199 

had  led  him  to  Beatrice,  the  revealed  truth,  and 
now  those  nymphs,  which  in  Heaven  are  stars, 
completely  fill  him  with  their  light,  and  fit  him 
to  know  the  immutable  truth  of  God's  deahng 
with  men  in  redemption.  This  is  made  known 
in  the  heaven  of  the  Fixed  Stars  where  he  finds 
himself.  Here  for  the  first  time  he  sees  Christ 
in  his  glorious  aspect  as  the  incarnated  redeemer 
of  men :  — 

"  Saw  I,  above  the  myriad  lamps 

A  Smi  that  one  and  all  of  them  enkindled, 
E'en  as  our  own  doth  the  supernal  sights, 
And  through  the  living  light  transparent  shone 
The  lucent  substance  so  intensely  clear 
Into  my  sight,  that  I  sustained  it  not."  ^ 

This  lucent  substance  was  the  humanity  of 
Christ,  and  the  truth  of  the  Incarnation  became 
so  wondrously  beautiful  that  his  mind  dilating 
issued  out  of  itself  and  he  beheld  the  smile  of 
Beatrice.  Thus  nobly  does  the  seer  teach  that 
it  is  after  looking  upon  Christ  that  one  may  be- 
hold the  full  grace  of  truth,  —  even  a  moment's 
intuition  of  incarnate  love  affording  him  a  new 
understanding  of  theology,  —  and  that  personal 
Christian  experience  leads  into  the  richness  of  the 
Church's  teaching.  Later  he  will  dispense  with 
Theology  and  look  more  immediately  upon  Christ. 
His  brows  being  too  feeble  to  gaze  upon  the 
glories  of  the  ascended  Redeemer,  he  fixes  his 
eyes  upon  Mary  as  the  brightest  star  he  can  be- 

1  Par.  xxiii.  28-33. 


200  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

hold.  After  the  assumption  of  the  Virgin,  St. 
Peter  himself  examines  the  poet  concerning  faith. 
Dante  replies  by  giving  the  classic  definition 
found  in  Hebrews  xi.  1.  To  him  faith  was 
not  the  acceptance  of  an  unproved  dogma,  but  a 
settled  spiritual  assurance  of  the  soul  produced 
by  the  self-evidencing  power  of  religious  truth. 
The  facts  and  teachings  of  the  Scriptures  he 
believed  to  be  so  permeated  with  divine  light 
that  they  became  self -affirming  and  able  by  their 
grace  to  work  within  the  heart  a  sweet  persua- 
sion. As  it  is  upon  this  faith  that  all  our  high 
hopes  are  founded  it  is  their  substance.  This 
spiritual  conviction  is  also  the  evidence  of  the 
reality  of  truth,  as  Anselm  had  stated  before 
him. 

The  supreme  truth  in  which  faith  rests  is  the 
Trinity.  The  doctrine  in  its  self-revealing  power 
"  ofttimes  sets  the  seal  upon  my  mind.  This  is 
the  beginning :  this  is  the  spark,  that  afterwards 
dilates  to  vivid  flame,  and  like  a  star  in  heaven 
scintillates  within  me."  ^  To  St.  James  he  de- 
clares that  "  Hope  is  the  sure  expectation  of 
future  glory,  which  divine  grace  produces  and 
preceding  merit."  ^  No  son  of  the  Church  mili- 
tant has  more  than  he,  and  being  full  he  showers 
down  the  rain  upon  others. 

When  St.  John  appears,  clothed  in  a  glory 
that  would  turn  night  into  day,  there  occurs  a 

1  Par.  xxiv.  145-147.  ^  p^r.  xxv.  67-69. 


THE  TWO  HEAVENS  201 

most  interesting  episode.  Dante  gazes  into  this 
light  that  shone  with  the  splendor  of  the  sun, 
not  to  learn  profound  reHgious  truths,  but  to 
ascertain  whether  John  had  carried  his  mortal 
body  up  to  heaven.  The  dazzling  brightness 
overcomes  his  sight :  "  Ah  !  how  greatly  was  I 
disturbed  in  mind,  when  I  turned  to  see  Beatrice, 
at  not  being  able  to  see  her,  although  I  was  near 
her,  and  in  the  happy  world ! "  ^  This  seems  to  be 
a  hint  that  curiosity,  too  intently  peering  into 
trivial  tradition,  blinds  one  for  a  moment  to  the 
glories  of  truth. 

After  havino;  satisfied  St.  John  that  he  loved 
God  as  the  supreme  good  and  as  the  chief  object 
of  love,  both  for  what  He  was  and  for  what  He 
had  done,  he  sees  again  the  radiance  of  truth, 
as  to  his  restored  vision  the  eyes  of  Beatrice  shine 
"  resplendent  more  than  a  thousand  miles." 

In  the  midst  of  his  inebriation,  through  glad- 
ness so  ineffable  that  what  he  sees  seems  the 
"smile  of  the  Universe,"  he  does  not  for  a 
moment  forget  for  what  purpose  he  is  in  Paradise. 
Many  a  saintly  mystic  had  sought  heavenly 
visions  for  the  ecstatic  raptures  they  gave ;  not 
so  this  austere  Tuscan  prophet.  The  vision 
wonderful  has  been  given  to  him  that  he  may 
make  known  the  judgments  of  God,  and  this 
solemn  commission  is  never  for  an  instant  absent 
from    his    mind.     Willingly  he    cuts   short    his 

1  Par.  XXV.  136-139. 


202  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

ecstasies  to  hear  St.  Peter's  terrible  denunciation 
of  degenerate  Popes. 

In  the  ninth  heaven,  which  surrounds  all  the 
others  and  from  which  all  movement  descends  to 
them,  called  in  consequence  the  Primum  Mobile, 
are  revealed  celestial  mysteries.  The  truths  dis- 
closed are  not  those  which  enter  into  redemption, 
but  those  which  constitute  the  joy  of  Paradise. 
Here  are  reiterated  in  clearest  and  most  forcible 
lanofuasfe  the  dominant  truths  of  the  "Paradiso  :  " 
that  nearness  to  God  determines  the  degree  of 
bliss ;  that  movement  is  swift  in  proportion  as 
love  is  burning ;  that  spirits  are  exalted  in  so  far 
as  they  see  God ;  that  "  all  have  delight  to  the 
degree  that  their  vision  penetrates  into  the  True 
in  w^hich  every  understanding  is  at  rest ;  "  and 
that  merit  determines  the  measure  of  this  seeing. 

But  the  intense  interest  in  this  highest  of  all 
the  heavens  centres  in  the  marvelous  symbol  by 
which  the  Deity  is  represented.  We  have  seen 
truth  embodied  in  many  significant  forms  in  our 
ascent  through  the  lower  heavens,  the  knightly 
cross,  the  Roman  Eagle,  the  golden  ladder,  now 
Dante  with  audacious  thought  will  essay  to 
image  the  Invisible  Himself  !  What  symbol  can 
be  appropriate  to  represent  the  Eternal,  Incom- 
prehensible Being  who  fills  all  things  !  Dante  is 
too  sagacious  to  make  the  mistake  of  seeking 
something  infinitely  large.  With  a  rare  sense 
of  both  beauty  and  truth  he  selects  the  infinitesi- 


THE  TWO  HEAVENS  203 

mally  small !  "  I  saw  a  Point  which  was  raying 
out  light  so  keen  that  the  sight  on  which  it 
blazes  must  needs  close  because  of  its  intense 
keenness."^  Ozanam,  in  his  very  suggestive  book 
on  "  Dante  and  the  Catholic  Philosophy  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century/'  has  an  illuminative  passage 
on  the  wisdom  of  this  symbol.  "  God  reveals 
Himself  as  necessarily  indivisible,  and  conse- 
quently incapable  of  having  ascribed  to  Him  the 
abstraction  of  quantity  and  quality  by  which  we 
know  creatures :  indefinable,  because  every  defi- 
nition is  an  analysis  which  decomposes  the  sub- 
ject defined :  incomparable,  because  there  are  no 
terms  to  institute  a  comparison ;  so  that  one 
might  say,  giving  the  words  an  oblique  meaning, 
that  He  is  infinitely  little,  that  He  is  nothing. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  that  which  is  without 
extension  moves  without  resistance ;  that  which 
is  not  to  be  grasped  cannot  be  contained ;  that 
which  can  be  enclosed  within  no  limitations, 
either  actual  or  logical,  is  by  that  very  fact  limit- 
less. The  infinitely  little  is  then  also  the  infinitely 
great,  and  we  may  say  in  a  certain  way  that  it  is 
all."  '^  What  better  type  is  there  of  the  Indivisible, 
Limitless,  Incomprehensible,  Irresistible,  Soul 
and  Centre  of  all,  than  a  Point  of  intensest 
light  ? 

1  Par.  xxviii.  16-18. 

2  Dante  and  the  Cath.  Phil.  pp.  307,  308. 


THE   ULTIMATE    BEATITUDE 

Turning  his  vanquished  eyes  toward  Beatrice, 
whose  indescribable  beauty  only  God,  who  above 
sees  the  full  glory  of  the  supreme  doctrines,  can 
comprehend,  the  two  pass  into  the  Empyrean. 
They  have  left  behind  the  lower  heavens  where 
truth  had  been  made  known  to  them  in  symbols, 
and  have  come  to  the  realm  of  pure  light  where 
they  can  behold  reality.  We  shall  see  no  more 
rhythmic  dances,  whirling  saints,  and  spirits  in- 
distinguishable in  their  own  splendor,  but  with 
clarified  vision  shall  behold  things  as  they  are. 
Movement  has  given  place  to  serene,  eternal  peace; 
the  countenances  of  the  elect  are  seen  in  their 
unveiled  glory ;  no  sound  of  earth's  warrings,  no 
wrath  for  human  sin  disturb  their  sacred,  ever- 
lasting calm  ;  all  things  are  now  known  to  be  in 
God  and  God  in  all  things,  and  the  vision  brings 
perfect  joy  and  love. 

As  Dante  enters  the  pure  light,  spaceless,  time- 
less, "  light  intellectual  full  of  love  ;  love  of  true 
good  full  of  joy;  joy  that  transcends  every  sweet- 
ness," ^  he  is  carried  above  his  own  power  and 

^  Par.  XXX.  40-43. 


THE  ULTIMATE  BEATITUDE  205 

has  his  sight  rekindled.  The  blinding  flash  that 
comes  upon  him,  first  vanquishing  his  eyes  and 
then  wonderfully  increasing  their  wonted 
strength,  probably  indicates  that  he  has  passed 
from  his  normal  condition  into  one  of  ecstasy ; 
contemplation  has  given  place  to  direct  vision,  and 
he  sees  what  the  redeemed  behold  by  immediate 
intuition.  That  Dante  even  here  is  describing 
the  heights  of  spiritual  experience  possible  on 
earth  is  proved  by  his  statement  that  Bernard 
"  in  this  world,  in  contemplation,  tasted  of  that 
peace."  ^  Professor  Tyndall  gives  a  most  interest- 
ing account  of  a  conversation  with  Tennyson,  in 
which  the  latter  recounts  his  sensations  in  a  simi- 
lar state  into  which  he  could  throw  himself  by 
thinking  intently  of  his  own  name.  "  It  was  im- 
possible to  give  anything  which  could  be  called  a 
description  of  the  state,  for  language  seemed  in- 
competent to  touch  it.  It  was  an  apparent  isola- 
tion of  the  spirit  from  the  body.  Wishing  appar- 
ently to  impress  upon  me  the  reality  of  the 
phenomenon,  he  exclaimed,  '  By  God  Almighty, 
there  is  no  delusion  in  the  matter  !  It  is  no 
nebulous  ecstasy,  but  a  state  of  transcendent 
wonder,  associated  with  absolute  clearness  of 
mind.'  Other  persons  with  powerful  imaginations 
have  had,  I  believe,  similar  experiences.  Walking 
out  with  a  friend  one  evening,  the  poet  Words- 
worth approached  a  gate,  and  laying  hold  of  its 

1  Par.  xxxi.  110,  111. 


20C  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

barSj  turned  to  his  companion  and  said,  '  My  dear 
sir,  to  assure  myself  of  the  existence  of  my  own 
body,  I  am  sometimes  obliged  to  grasp  an  object 
like  this  and  shake  it.'  The  condition  here  re- 
ferred to  appears  to  be  similar  to  that  '  union  with 
God  '  which  was  described  by  Plotinus  and  Por- 
phyry." ^  This  phase  of  emotional  experience  is 
uncommon  in  the  hot  and  mercenary  rush  of 
modern  life  ;  but  in  the  days  when  great  spirits 
sought  solitude  as  the  very  audience  chamber  of 
God,  and  pondered  long  and  deeply  upon  the 
mysteries  of  the  Divine  Being,  it  was  considered 
a  sure  flight  to  the  apprehension  of  the  highest 
knowledge. 

At  first,  being  not  yet  perfected,  Dante  sees 
only  foreshadowings  of  truth,  but  having  drunk 
of  the  river  of  light  he  beholds  the  courts  of 
heaven  manifest  in  the  form  of  a  rose.  The  lake 
of  Hofht  that  formed  the  centre  was  circular,  to 
teach  the  eternity  of  God,  who  is  the  source  and 
end  of  all  things,  Himself  without  beginning  or 
ending.  Above  the  light,  ranged  round  and 
round  about  on  more  than  a  thousand  seats,  were 
mirrored  all  who  had  returned  on  high.  The 
figure  of  a  rose  served  Dante's  purpose  well.  It 
is  a  true  type  of  a  divine  society  whose  centre  is 
God  and  all  of  whose  members  are  mutually 
dependent ;  Mary's  emblem  is  the  rose,  and  she, 
the  Mystical  Rose,  is  the  symbol  of  the  Church. 

1  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson,  by  his  Son,  vol.  ii.  pp.  473,  474. 


THE  ULTIMATE  BEATITUDE  207 

Turning  to  question  Beatrice  he  saw  by  his 
side  an  old  man,  robed  like  the  people  in  glory. 
It  is  St.  Bernard  —  the  figure  of  mystic  faith  — 
for  amid  the  highest  truths  and  in  the  immediate 
presence  of  God,  theology  gives  place  to  intuition. 
Revealed  truth  is  no  longer  necessary,  the 
redeemed  see  His  face.  After  Bernard's  prayer 
to  the  Virgin  —  which  in  lyrical  beauty  is  unsur- 
passed in  poetry  —  for  the  dissipation  of  every 
cloud  of  Dante's  mortaHty  that  the  Supreme 
Pleasure  may  be  disclosed  to  him,  the  poet  draws 
near  to  behold  the  beatific  vision.  "  Bernard 
was  beckoning  to  me,  and  was  smiling,  that  I 
should  look  upward ;  but  I  was  already,  of  my  own 
accord,  such  as  he  wished ;  for  my  sight,  becom- 
ing pure,  was  entering  more  and  more  through 
the  radiance  of  the  lofty  Light  which  of  itself  is 
true.  In  its  depths  I  saw  that  whatsoever  is  dis- 
persed through  the  universe  is  there  included, 
bound  with  love  in  one  volume ;  substance  and 
accidents  and  their  modes,  fused  together,  as  it 
were,  in  such  wise  that  that  of  which  I  speak  is 
one  simple  Light.  In  that  Light  one  becomes 
such  that  it  is  impossible  he  should  ever  consent 
to  turn  himself  from  it  for  other  sight ;  because 
the  Good  which  is  the  object  of  the  will  is  all 
collected  in  it,  and  outside  of  it  that  is  defective 
which  is  perfect  there.  Within  the  profound 
and  clear  subsistence  of  the  lofty  Light  appeared 
to  me  three  circles  of  three  colors  and  of  one  di- 


208  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

mension  ;  and  one  appeared  reflected  by  the  other, 
as  Iris  by  Iris,  and  the  third  appeared  fire  which 
from  the  one  and  from  the  other  is  equally 
breathed  forth.  That  circle  which,  thus  con- 
ceived, appeared  as  a  reflected  light,  being  some- 
while  regarded  by  my  eyes,  seemed  to  me  depicted 
within  itself,  of  its  own  very  color,  by  our  effigy 
wherefore  my  sight  was  wholly  set  upon  it.  As 
is  the  geometer  who  wholly  applies  himself  to 
measure  the  circle,  and  finds  not  by  thinking  that 
principle  of  which  he  is  in  need,  such  was  I  at 
that  new  siofht.  I  wished  to  see  how  the  imag-e 
accorded  with  the  circle,  and  how  it  has  its  place 
therein  ;  but  my  own  wings  were  not  for  this, 
had  it  not  been  that  my  mind  w^as  smitten  by  a 
flash  in  which  its  wdsh  came. 

'^  To  my  high  fantasy  here  power  failed  ;  but 
now  my  desire  and  my  will,  like  a  wheel  which 
evenly  is  moved,  the  love  was  turning  wdiich 
moves  the  Sun  and  other  stars."  ^ 

"  No  uninspired  hand,"  says  Cardinal  Manning, 
"  has  ever  written  thoughts  so  high  in  words  so 
resplendent  as  the  last  stanza  of  the  Divina  Com- 
media.  It  was  said  of  St.  Thomas ,  ^  Post  Sum- 
mam  Thomae  nihil  restat  nisi  lumen  glorise  !  ' 
It  may  be  said  of  Dante,  '  Post  Dantis  Paradisum 
nihil  restat  nisi  visio  Dei.'  "  ^  "  The  perfect  hap- 
piness of  man,"  WTites  St.  Thomas,  ''  consists  in 
a  vision  of  the  Divine  Essence,  for  the  intellect 

^  Par.  xxxiii.  49  ff.  ^  Quoted  from  Dean  Plumptre. 


THE  ULTIMATE  BEATITUDE  209 

cannot  be  perfectly  happy  until  it  reaches  as  far 
as  the  essence  of  the  First  Cause."  ^  This  is  the 
eternal  life  which  John  declares  consists  in  know- 
ing God  and  Christ.  "  We  shall  be  like  Him/' 
exclaims  the  apostle,  "  for  we  shall  see  Him  even 
as  He  is."  ^  Through  the  power  of  this  vision 
Dante  represents  himself  as  having  attained  that 
perfection  which  is  possible  in  this  life,  —  the 
charity  which  in  the  thought  of  St.  Thomas  ex- 
cludes from  the  heart  what  is  contrary  to  charity, 
and  all  that  hinders  the  entire  concentration  of 
the  heart  upon  God. 

1  Rickaby,  Aquinas  Ethicus,  p.  24.  ^  1  John  3  :  2. 


XI 

A   STUDY    OF    SPIRITUAL    VALUES 

To  criticise  this  vision  of  God,  which  in 
majesty  of  thought  and  sustained  beauty  of  ex- 
pression is  unrivaled  in  all  the  literature  of  the 
spirit,  and  beyond  which  the  wing  of  genius  can- 
not fly,  is  an  impertinence  ;  but  a  reverential 
study  of  it  is  amply  rewarding. 

These  last  cantos  of  the  "  Paradiso  "  set  forth 
a  conception  of  Christian  experience,  possible 
even  on  earth,  that  is  far  more  exalted  than  the 
one  commonly  held.  The  end  to  be  sought  in 
Dante's  mind  was  somethinsf  more  than  the 
satisfaction  arising  from  right  hving,  more  than 
the  paroxysmal  and  transient  elevation  of  the 
emotions,  more  than  the  complete  development 
of  all  those  noble  and  beautiful  elements  of  our 
nature  which  constitute  Christian  character.  His 
thought  swept  beyond  all  these,  even  to  a  super- 
human exaltation  in  which  the  soul,  above  the 
limitations  of  the  flesh  and  escaping  its  bondage, 
should  habitually  dwell  in  the  presence  of  eter- 
nal realities,  illumined  by  the  divine  light,  ex- 
ultant with  celestial  joys,  and  consciously  one 
with  God  Himself  in  purpose  and  in  desire. 


A  STUDY  OF  SPIRITUAL  VALUES  211 

This  is  the  mystical  ideal  of  the  religious  life ; 
but  Dante  held  it  in  a  thoroughly  rational  way, 
shunning  the  follies  into  which  religious  genius 
has  so  often  fallen.  Mysticism  is  the  outgrowth 
of  the  effort  of  the  mind  to  apprehend  the 
Divine  Essence,  and  to  enjoy  the  blessedness  of 
actual  communion  with  the  Most  Hioh.  It  dif- 
fers  from  the  ordinary  religious  feeling  only  in 
its  intensity.  Its  chief  danger  is  that  this  vivid 
consciousness  of  God  will  overwhelm  the  soul's 
sense  of  its  own  personality,  and  lead  it  to  seek 
a  union  with  the  Highest  which  shall  be  an  ab- 
sorption, a  fusion,  of  the  individual  in  Him. 
Dante  in  the  blaze  of  the  Light  Eternal  never 
for  a  moment  suffers  a  sense  of  diminished  indi- 
viduality, or  loses  sight  of  his  rational  and  struc- 
tural thouo^ht  that  the  end  to  be  souo^ht  in  all 
visions  and  raptures  is  ethical  harmony  —  not 
identity  —  of  his  life  with  God.  He  teaches  that 
the  way  to  the  Throne  is  walking  under  the 
perfect  light  of  the  seven  stars,  mounting  from 
virtue  to  vu'tue,  and  from  truth  to  truth,  until 
into  the  soul,  made  capacious  and  pure  by  thought 
and  achievement,  the  light  of  the  glory  of  God 
shall  come. 

There  is  a  wealth  of  relio^ious  sio^nificance  in 
the  fact,  not  often  noted,  that  when  Dante  looked 
deep  into  the  lofty  Hght  and  saw  the  symbol  of 
the  Trinity,  there  appeared  within  the  circle  of 
reflected  light,  representing  the  Son,  our  ef^gj. 


212  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

which  wholly  engrossed  his  attention.  The  final 
revelation,  the  ultimate  truth,  out  of  which  grows 
the  supreme  beatitude,  is  that  in  God  there  is 
the  eternally  human.  That  in  the  Infinite  there 
is  the  prototype  of  mankind,  that  humanity  is 
rooted  and  grounded  in  the  divine,  and  that  the 
Hijrhest  is  in  a  real  sense  like  us  ;  this  is  the 
truth  of  truths,  primal  and  coronal  in  all  religious 
thinkino^.  It  is  the  heart  of  the  Christian  re- 
velation.  The  humanity  which  was  in  Christ  is 
a  disclosure  of  what  is  forever  in  God;  what 
Jesus  was  on  Calvary  in  the  compassion  of  His 
heart,  the  Father  upon  His  Throne  is  eternally. 
The  proclamation  of  the  humanity  of  God  con- 
quered the  cold  abstractions  of  Greek  philosophy, 
and  satisfied  the  starving  heart  of  Rome.  The 
cross  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  be- 
cause it  is  the  embodiment  of  this  truth.  This 
divine  sympathy  and  love,  based  upon  community 
of  nature,  is  Christianity's  noblest  thought  and 
greatest  consolation.  Browning  well  shows  how 
it  is  at  the  heart  of  all  religion  :  — 

"  'T  is  the  weakness  in  strength  that  I  cry  for  ;   my  flesh  that  I 

seek 
In  the  God-head  !  I  seek  and  I  find  it,  O  Saul  !  it  shall  be, 
A  face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee  ;  a  Man  like  to  me 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by  forever  ;   A  Hand  like  this 

hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  Life  to  thee  !  See  the  Christ 

stand."  1 

It  is   perfectly  characteristic  of  Dante  that, 

1  Saul. 


A  STUDY  OF  SPIEITUAL  VALUES  213 

ha\4ng  beheld  this  transcendent  truth,  he  should 
press  on  in  the  true  spirit  of  the  schoolmen  to 
understand  how  Christ's  humanity  could  coin- 
cide with  His  divinity. 

One  cannot  help  noting  again  how  Christ  was 
to  Dante  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity,  a 
function,  a  metaphysical  problem,  rather  than 
Immanuel,  a  Saviour,  a  friend,  to  know  whom  is 
life  eternal.  Contrast  Dante's  thouo^ht  of  Hea- 
ven  with  that  of  a  modern  theoloo^ian. 

"  From  the  lowly  manger  to  the  loftiest 
heights  of  adoration.  He  is  still  to  me  the  per- 
sonal man,  distinct  forever  from  the  personal 
God,  the  one  man  in  whom  dwelleth  the  fullness 
of  the  Godhead  bodily.  The  vision  of  his  face 
is  the  only  vision  I  ever  expect  to  have  of  God, 
as  Philip  saw  in  Him  the  Father.  But  that  vis- 
ion I  confidently  look  forward  to.  I  shall  see 
Him,  the  fairest  among  ten  thousand,  the  first 
born  of  every  creature,  the  Lord  of  men  and 
angels,  the  eternal  High  Priest  of  my  redemp- 
tion, who  bore  my  sins  and  conquered  death. 
And  I  think,  I  think,  that  were  I  to  see  Him 
only  once,  the  gladness  of  my  heart  would  wake 
an  everlastino^  sono^  1  " 

When  Dante  penned  these  closing  cantos  of 
his  immortal  work  he  was  nearino^  the  end  of 
life.  He  had  lived  deeply,  both  in  experience 
and  in  thought.  He  had  gone  into  the  depths 
of  the  world's  woe,  and  found  that  behind  all 


214  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  DANTE 

its  horrors  and  fierce  penalties  were  divine  jus- 
tice and  love.  He  had  felt  within  himself  the 
weight  and  the  burnings  of  disciplinary  punish- 
ments, and  doubtless  he  firmly  believed  them  to 
be  the  instruments  of  the  Supreme  Benignity. 
In  his  growing  life  he  had  passed  from  truth  to 
truth,  and  when  he  wrote  the  last  verses, 
radiant  with  celestial  lio^ht  and  throbbino-  w^ith 
unspeakable  joy,  he  unquestionably  set  down, 
not  the  dogmas  of  his  day,  but  the  living  faith 
of  his  own  heart  and  the  assured  conviction  of 
his  own  mind.  Wherever  he  had  gone  in  his 
strange  pilgrimage,  he  had  learned  that  he  was 
living  in  God's  universe,  and  when  he  came  to 
stand  face  to  face  with  the  Final  Mystery,  he 
found  that  it  was  a  mystery  of  light,  and  not  of 
darkness.  His  experience  had  given  him  an 
unalterable  conviction  that,  when  the  mind  fol- 
lows thought  to  the  end,  it  will  rest  with  perfect 
peace  in  knowable  Truth,  even  as  a  bird  in  its 
nest ;  he  believed  that  the  soul's  "  concreate  and 
perpetual  thirst "  for  God  would  be  satisfied  by 
di'inking  of  the  never  failing  River  of  Life ;  and 
that  the  scourged  and  lacerated  heart,  when  it 
pressed  through  to  the  Source  of  all  things, 
would  find  itself  in  the  healing  presence  of  Com- 
passionate Love.  This  vision  glorious  was  to 
him  the  splendor  of  certain  truth.  It  was  an 
experience  born  of  his  own  life,  and  he  felt  that 
he  was  a  representative  of  humanity. 


A  STUDY  OF  SPIRITUAL  VALUES  215 

Many  also  of  the  most  distinguished  and  il- 
luminating thinkers  of  the  generation  just  pass- 
ing away  have  followed  eagerly  their  thought 
to  the  Ultimate  Mystery,  and  have  found  only 
the  horror  of  utter  darkness.  They  have  recog- 
nized the  spirit's  "concreate  and  perpetual 
thirst/'  and  in  the  chill  of  the  great  void  they 
have  reared  an  altar  to  the  Unknown.  This 
very  denial  of  the  Primal  Light  is  a  most  elo- 
quent witness  to  its  existence.^  Herbert  Spencer 
would  slake  this  thirst  by  cherishing  a  feeling 
of  awe  and  reverence  in  the  presence  of  the 
Encompassing  Darkness.  Frederic  Harrison, 
just  as  truly  an  agnostic,  vigorously  denies  that 
the  soul's  religious  instinct  can  be  satisfied  by 
prostrating  itself  before  the  Unknown  ;  it  craves 
the  Known,  and  so  Humanity  is  chosen  as  the 
fittest  object  of  worship.  Matthew  Arnold  finds 
a  Tendency  working  for  righteousness ;  with 
this  tendency  indwelling  in  us  and  others  we 
must  ally  ourselves.  But  what  is  Spencer's  Un- 
known but  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Father,  the 
Abyss  of  Being,  out  of  whom  all  things  have 
proceeded?  And  what  is  Frederic  Harrison's 
craving  for  the  Known  in  humanity  but  a  vague 
reaching  out  for  God  manifest  in  the  flesh? 
And  what  is  Matthew  Arnold's  Tendency  but 
the  Spirit  working  out  the  will  of  the  Father  ? 
Each  has  laid  hold  of  a  partial  truth,  each  ex- 

1  The  Witness  of  Denial.     V.  D.  Scudder. 


216  THE   TEACHINGS   OF   DANTE 

presses  one  phase  of  humanity's  ceaseless  hunger 
for  God.  He  who  would  represent  humanity  as 
a  whole  in  its  quest  for  truth  must  find  the  Triune 
God,  the  Infinite,  the  Known,  the  Indwelling. 
Thus  do  the  three  schools  of  modern  Ao^nosticism 
bear  most  forcible  testimony  to  the  cra\dng  of 
mankind  for  that  Fountain  of  Eternal  Lisfht 
which  Dante  found.  We  are  surely  making  no 
reckless  leaj)  of  credulity  when  we  assume  that 
this  profoundest  yearning  which  Nature  has  cre- 
ated in  her  children,  as  she  has  moulded  them 
during  countless  ages,  she  will  fulfill,  even  as  she 
has  satisfied  all  the  other  appetites  she  has  made, 
and  that  the  goal  of  life  is  the  Beautiful  Vision 
and  not  the  gulf  of  darkness.  Dante's  vision 
splendid  will  not  fade  into  the  light  of  common 
day,  because  — 

"  There  is  a  light  above,  which  visible 
Makes  the  Creator  unto  every  creature, 
Who  only  in  beholding  Him  has  peace." 


APPENDIX 


FiGURA    UNIVERSALE 
DELLA 

DIVINA    COMMEDIA 


CIELO  QUIETO 


XStCo 


,.  ,     ,        EMPIREO 

li:^-     — ___    PARADISO 


THE  SCHEME  OF  DANTE'S  UNIVERSE 

From  '*  La  materia  dtlla  Di'vina  CommeJia  Ji  Dante  AUghicri  dichiarata  m  VI. 
ta-Tole.      Dal  Due  a  ATuhclangclo  Cactani  li'i  isermoticta.^^ 


APPENDIX 

THE  TOPOGRAPHY  OF  DANTE'S  SPIRITUAL 

WORLD 

Dante  did  not  follow  the  schoolmen  in  his  conception  of 
the  form  and  location  of  the  tliree  kingdoms  of  the  eternal 
world,  but  constructed  a  topography  of  his  own.  He 
maintained  that  the  earth  is  round,  having  a  hemisphere  of 
land,  in  the  centre  of  which  stands  Jerusalem.  The  other 
hemisphere  originally  contained  land ;  but  when  Lucifer, 
hurled  from  Heaven,  was  about  to  fall  ujDon  it,  the  soil 
"  veiled  itself  with  the  sea  "  and  came  to  the  other  side  of 
the  globe,  making  a  hemisphere  of  land  and  a  hemisphere 
of  water. 

The  interior  of  the  earth  also  retreated  before  the  de- 
scending Lucifer,  leaving  a  vast  conical-shaped  cavity, 
which  extended  from  the  centre  of  the  globe  to  the  surface 
of  the  inhabited  hemisphere.  The  void  which  evil  made 
in  the  world  is  the  abode  of  lost  souls,  and  is  divided  into 
nine  circles,  of  which  the  seventh  is  subdivided  into  three 
smaller  circles,  the  eighth  into  ten  ditches,  and  the  ninth 
into  four  belts.  At  the  centre  of  the  earth,  and  thus  at  the 
point  farthest  from  God,  is  Lucifer,  with  his  head  and 
body  in  one  hemisphere,  and  his  legs  in  the  other,  so  that 
when  Virgil  and  Dante  turned  upon  liis  haunch,  they  passed 
the  centre  of  gravity  and  emerged  from  one  hemisphere 
into  the  other. 

According  to  Dante's  thought,  the  soul  naturally  mounts 
upward  to  God ;  but  sin  is  a  weight,  dragging  the  sinner 
downward  toward  Satan.  Consequently  he  represents  the 
lighter  transgressions  as  receiving  retribution  in  the  upper 


220  APPENDIX 

circles,  and  the  more  offensive  deeper  down  ;  the  very  worst 
of  all,  treachery,  being  punished  by  Satan  himself,  at  the 
bottom  of  the  Pit. 

The  soil,  displaced  by  the  presence  of  Lucifer,  rushed  up- 
ward into  the  hemisphere  of  water,  forming  a  mountain,  a 
truncated  cone  in  shape,  and  antipodal  to  Jerusalem.  It 
has  three  grand  divisions  :  Ante-Purgatory,  a  place  of  ex- 
piation only  ;  Purgatory  proper,  divided  into  seven  ledges, 
upon  each  of  which  one  of  the  seven  mortal  sins  —  ranged 
according  to  their  offensiveness  to  God,  the  worst,  pride,  be- 
ing on  the  first  ledge  —  is  both  expiated  and  purged  away  ; 
and  the  Terrestrial  Paradise,  the  original  Garden  of  Eden, 
situated  on  the  summit  of  the  mountain,  the  place  where  the 
memory  is  purified,  and  the  nature  crippled  by  sin  is  re- 
stored to  its  primal  energy.  Here  Dante  meets  Beatrice, 
and  begins  liis  upward  flight. 

The  Ptolemaic  system  of  astronomy  considered  the  im- 
movable centre  of  the  universe  to  be  the  earth.  Encircling 
it  is  the  sphere  of  air,  which  lies  within  the  sphere  of  fire. 
Beyond  these  are  seven  heavens,  in  each  of  which  moved 
one  of  the  seven  planets,  the  order  being  the  Moon,  ISIer- 
cury,  Venus,  the  Sun,  Mars,  Jupiter,  and  Saturn.  Above 
these  is  the  heaven  of  the  Fixed  Stars,  and  encompassing 
all  is  the  Primum  Mobile,  the  source  of  all  motion. 

It  was  the  common  belief  of  the  time  that  the  nine  heavens 
were  ruled  by  the  nine  orders  of  angels ;  but  Dante  went 
further,  and  affirmed  that  each  heaven  was  under  the  care 
of  one  rank  of  celestial  intelligences.  The  Moon  he  assigned 
to  the  Angels  ;  Mercury  to  the  Arch-angels  ;  Venus  to  the 
Principalities ;  the  Sun  to  the  Powers  ;  Mars  to  the  Vir- 
tues ;  Jupiter  to  the  Dominions  ;  Saturn  to  the  Thrones  ;  the 
Fixed  Stars  to  the  Cherubim ;  and  the  Primum  Mobile  to 
the  Seraphim.  The  Angelic  Hierarchy  look  continually 
upon  the  face  of  God  ;  the  nearer  they  are  to  Him  the  clearer 
their  vision,  and  the  depth  of  their  insight  determines  the 
swiftness  of  their  motion  and  the  rapture  of  their  love.    The 


APPENDIX  221 

energy  they  receive  from  God  they  transmit  to  the  heaven 
over  which  they  preside.  The  Seraphim,  being  nearest  the 
Source  of  Life  and  Light,  fly  with  swiftest  movement,  and 
therefore  communicate  most  vigorous  motion  to  the  Primum 
Mobile,  each  interior  sphere  revolving  more  slowly  than  the 
one  above  it,  the  heaven  of  the  Moon  moving  the  slowest  of 
all.  The  heavens  stream  down  upon  the  earth  their  divine 
influences,  powerfully  affecting  material  things,  and  the  dis- 
positions and  destiny  of  men. 

Surrounding  all  the  heavens  is  the  Empyrean,  the  time- 
less, motionless  abode  of  God,  the  Angels,  and  the  Re- 
deemed. The  spirits  who  meet  Dante  in  the  different 
heavens  do  so  to  reveal  their  degree  of  blessedness,  and  to 
teach  him  important  truths  ;  their  permanent  dwelling  place 
is  above  the  revolving  spheres. 


"  My  Soul,  an  alien  here,  hath  flown  to  nobler  wars."  —  Dante. 


ElectrotyPed  and  printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  b*  G* 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 


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